


Addendum GW

by dracox_serdriel



Category: Grimm (TV), The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 04, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Dreams, Blutbad, Canon Crossover, Canon-Typical Violence, Carria-chalma, Case Fic, Coyotl, Crossover, Disturbing Themes, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Faidh-chalma, Fuchsbau, Geflugelten Ritters, Gen, Genetic Disorders & Abnormalities, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Graphic Description of Corpses, Harm to Animals, Hexenbiest, Medical, Medical Mystery, Misdiagnosis, Multiple Cases, Neurology & Neuroscience, Nightmares, POV Multiple, Phansigar, Psychosis, Pythia, Seeing the future, The Sight, Violence, Wesen, Work In Progress, Zauberbiest, medical drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:59:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 63,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4424063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracox_serdriel/pseuds/dracox_serdriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the FBI clears his name, Fox Mulder struggles to rebuild his life, so when Treeview Hospital invites Dana Scully for and incredible career opportunity, the couple relocates to Portland, Oregon for a new start. </p><p>Detectives Nick Burkhardt and Hank Griffin become inundated with Wesen-related conflicts, both criminal and otherwise, as the Wesen population around Portland increases at an alarming rate for no discernable reason. The two detectives enlist Rosalee Calvert and Monroe to help Juliette Silverton, whose entire world is turned upside-down by her new Hexenbiest powers. </p><p>Mulder and Scully find themselves entangled in a conspiracy with new factions that all want a sphere of influence, but one thing becomes very apparent to the former FBI partners: they're all gunning for Nick Burkhardt. In fact, Burkhardt is at the center of so many odd occurrences, he could have his own X-Files cabinet, so Mulder opens a new case section: Addendum GW.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ad Noctum

**Author's Note:**

> **X-Files spoilers** : Addendum GW references characters and events that occur throughout the X-Files canon, including all TV episodes through 09x22 "The Truth" and the movies "Fight the Future" and "I Want To Believe."
> 
>  _Grimm spoilers_ : Addendum GW references characters and events of Grimm through episodes 04x22 "Cry Havoc," and though there is a substantial arc deviation from canon after episode 04x13 "Trial by Fire," many of the events and cases from the episodes that follow are preserved.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully move to Portland, Oregon for a new start. They face uncertainty on day one when Mulder receives an unexpected job offer, and Scully makes an unpleasant discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For common terminology definitions and pronunciation, see end-of-chapter notes.

Dana Scully pulled up to 1521 NE Prescott Street. She had to park on the street because the moving truck took up the entire driveway and blocked the garage.

"Mulder, wake up," she said, nudging her passenger. "We're here."

"Already? You said six more hours just half an hour ago," he said sleepily.

"I said that six and a half hours ago," she said. "Come on, the movers area already here, and they've already started unloading."

She got out of the car, and he followed a few moments, later, stretching to wake himself up. Together, they made their way up the front porch steps and inside.

"Scully, how long was I asleep?" 

The movers hadn't just started, they'd finished. Each room had stacks of boxes and clusters of furniture.

"Ah, you two are Doctor and Mister Mulder?" a young man said. 

"Actually, it's Doctor Scully and just Mulder, uh," Mulder began, glancing at the young mover's nametag and adding, "Gavan."

"Gavan Knoll, nice to meet you both."

"You work fast," Scully said. "Thank you."

"Just doing our jobs. We got everything inside the house and did our best getting the boxes in the right places. Since you guys labeled them that went right quick. Right now my guys are just waiting for your say on where the furniture belongs."

 

It was the easiest move that Mulder had ever experienced in his life. Admittedly, his experiences were skewed given the seven or so years he spent in hiding or on the lam, but even transitioning into his apartment in DC back when he started with the FBI was a weeklong ordeal. 

It took the movers less than two hours to corral and arrange all the furniture in the house, a particularly impressive feat given the two offices and complex assortment of decor.

When Knoll Movers wrapped, the sun was still out. Neighbors came by, welcoming them with handshakes and the occasional snack food. Mulder took care to remember every name and house number so he could sketch a neighborhood map later. 

It was just after dusk when his cell phone rang. 

"Mulder," he answered.

"Mulder, it's me," replied a familiar voice.

"Skinner?" 

"Thought I should call and see how the moving was going," he said. "Given you're now on the other side of the country."

"It's, uh, great, actually. We've only met a few people, but I can tell, this is a good change. Good for us, anyway."

"That's good, good."

There was a long, uncomfortable pause. 

"Skinner, why did you really call?" Mulder asked.

"I'm calling about your employment status."

"Employment status?" Mulder repeated. "As of right now, my employment consists on me writing a book that'll never be published. Why? Is the FBI looking for another scapegoat to chase around? Because, frankly, I've had enough of that for a lifetime. Scratch that, for several reincarnated life times."

"There's a situation in Portland that has drawn interest from a lot of people in high places," Skinner said. "It's just chatter and rumors for now."

"How does this affect me?"

"Portland has recently had an uptick in strange events."

"And by strange events you mean...?" Mulder prompted.

"The kind of things that'd be classified as X-Files, if they were still around."

Mulder replied, "Don't. I'm serious, Skinner, you can't do this to me. The X-Files are my life's work, but after the FBI did everything they could to discredit them, they're done. At best they're a footnote in history, but more likely, they're just a closed report on someone's desk. Whatever is left of them has been relegated to bloggers who wear tinfoil hats and conspiracy nuts who couldn't verify the expiration date on a cereal box, let alone credible information from their sources. So don't, all right? Don't dangle this in front of me."

"Mulder, all I'm saying is that there are things happening in Portland, and it's not just the FBI that's interested. NSA, DHS, Homeland security. Independent corporations."

"What could possibly be happening in Portland that'd get that kind of attention?"

"Over the course of a week, there were reports of multiple bodies missing from morgues all around Portland, and two separate autopsies were canceled - "

Mulder interrupted, "Because someone stole the bodies?"

"Actually, they attacked the medical examiner after the autopsy had started because they weren't dead, even though two EMTs and one medical doctor pronounced them."

"If you're about to say zombies, it's not. If Scully were here, she'd be able to list the myriad causes the behavior and appearance of those afflicted as so-called zombies. During a severe cataplexy attack, someone can be completely paralyzed with no discernable life signs, very easy to declare them dead by mistake, especially in the field when medical personnel are expected to identify a pulse with fingers instead of using highly sensitive cardiac monitors. The rareness of disorders with cataplexy as a symptom makes it difficult to believe two different people in the same week and same city would turn up dead-but-not-dead, but this is the era of designer drugs, just one click away on the internet. I'm not just talking tetrodotoxin, curare, tubocurarine, and succinylcholine. These days there's a whole generation of new muscle relaxants, anesthetics, paralyzing agents, and respiratory depressants that anyone can get their hands on if they're dedicated. From there it's just a matter of perfecting the cocktail."

"You're saying someone created a zombie designer drug?" Skinner asked, skepticism apparent in his voice.

"I doubt it was on purpose. They were probably trying to perfect a new high. Instead they got a zombie apocalypse. It's no more unlikely that someone discovering the recipe for Long Island Ice Tea."

Skinner hesitated before he continued. "I'm not asking you to investigate zombies or look into the ridiculously high number of animal maulings. But a lot of people are interested in a cop, and by definition, his partner, coworkers, and affiliates."

"You want me to check out a cop?" Mulder asked. "You used to know me better. I'd never do that, Skinner."

"Three homicides. Cause of death? Their guts exploded as a result of a very rare poison that only affects a tiny percentage of the population. The oddest thing about the case, however, is the killer. There was no physical evidence and no discernable motive. He could've gotten away with everything, kept on poisoning people, yet he signed a full confession," Skinner said. 

"Let me guess, this Portland detective everyone's so interested in is the one who got the confession."

"For the past three and a half years, this detective has closed too many hopeless cases with lucky breaks like the murderer who killed three people and left no trace signing a confession without bothering with a lawyer. It's not just luck, Mulder."

"So you think he's dirty?" Mulder asked. "Possibly torturing or blackmailing people into confession?"

Skinner replied, "I've no idea. I looked into this because this isn't the first time this guy's name came across my desk. Two years ago, two FBI Agents were murdered, and he became a person of interest. The agents that closed that case let him off the hook but only because someone high on the food chain ordered them to stand down. Then, just a few months ago, an FBI Agent disappeared and went on a crime spree only to be discovered in this detective's home, decapitated."

"Decapitated?" Mulder repeated. He added, "Seems a bit extreme, since I'm assuming detectives in this town all have guns."

"We've got three murdered FBI agents tied to this guy in the span of two years," Skinner said. "But that's not the most concerning thing."

"There's something more concerning that dead FBI agents?"

"Look, the people interested in this guy, I keep an eye on them for a reason. Attracting the attention of the FBI is one thing, but there are higher ups digging into this guy's life that shouldn't even glance at someone in Portland PD. And the people interested all dedicated the same kind of attention to you, Scully, Doggett, and Reyes during your time working for the X-Files."

Mulder took a moment to think about what Skinner had just said. 

When he didn't respond after a minute, Skinner continued, "I'm not asking you to look into this guy because I think he's dirty. It's easy to see it that way from what's in the record, but we both know sometimes facts don't make it into the record, for one reason or another. The point is, this guy is making people nervous, and they're the same people who got jumpy over your work on the X-Files."

"You want me to look into a cop to protect him?" Mulder asked.

"He might not be worth protecting, but if he is, he's going to need someone on his side. I'm asking you because you are the only one I trust to review a case that, for all intents and purposes, seems to be a ghost abducting children, and keep your head on straight enough to see the point," Skinner said. "You'd be hired as a consultant with an informal inquiry." 

"So I'd be a special investigator looking into a local cop with no partner and no authority?" Mulder said. "An informal inquiry only gets me access to case files and evidence on courtesy."

"You don't have to give me an answer today. Do me a favor, take a few days to think it over."

"Can I have his name? This detective raising everybody's hackles?" Mulder asked.

"Detective Nick Burkahrtd."

 

Scully changed into her pajamas and settled down in the living room with the welcome packet for her new position at Treeview Hospital. She had another week to go before her first day, so she had a leisurely read ahead of her.

"Thought you might like some tea," Mulder said as he placed a tray on the coffee table. 

"Yes, thank you," she said.

The next few moments unfolded with only the gentle sounds of pouring and clinking as Mulder made two cups of chamomile. 

"So, what do you think?" she asked.

"About the neighborhood? Yeah... it's great. Everyone seemed kind and interesting."

"But?"

He shrugged. "Nah, it's nothing."

"Mulder, tell me."

"Whenever one of our, uh, new neighbors asked me what I did for a living, I told them that I'm a researcher writing a book," he replied.

"That's the truth."

"No it's not. It's what I'm doing right now, but that's not who I am. It's not what I do for a living."

She sighed as she put the teacup down. "You're not the only one at this table who changed careers later in life." 

"You changed careers, Scully. I lost mine."

She wrapped her hand around his and pulled him closer. "Mulder, part of a fresh start is letting go, giving yourself a chance. Leaving the FBI wasn't easy for me, even though I wanted to be a full-time doctor. As an agent, I got to be both FBI and a doctor, and for a while, it felt like I'd cut part of myself away, being just a doctor."

"I remember, but it feels like a long time ago."

"It was," she said.

"How did you get through it?" he asked. "I don't think you ever told me."

"I knew that I couldn't be just a doctor, and eventually I realized the problem was me."

"You?"

She nodded. "I was thinking of myself as just a doctor, but in reality, I was a doctor. Not just a doctor, but a doctor. All that time investigating with you? It's not forgotten."

"Something tells me thinking of myself as a writer isn't all that empowering. It's pretty much equal to me being just a writer."

"What about your research?" she asked.

"My research is basically the history and myth that informed my investigations," he replied. "I mean, can I do that for the rest of my life? I don't see why not. I'm familiar with the materials and resources, and I've got contacts, relationships to work with. But it's not the same. It's academic, you know, just research."

"Just research?" she asked with a coy smile.

"It's not the same."

"Isn't it?"

"Our investigations made a difference. At least, I like to think so. Maybe we didn't solve every mystery or put away every criminal, but we made a difference. We saved people, and we helped people. Sometimes we failed, but we were out there, trying."

"Mulder, I - "

He interrupted, "Let me finish. You practice medicine, and you're out there every day, helping people, saving lives. The work you do is about the future. You changed jobs, but your career is basically the same. Me switching to ancient hauntings or supernatural events during World War I? That's not about the future, Scully, and it's not going to save anybody's life. If I'm lucky, it'll fuel the fires of a few intellectual debates and prop up a few academics before it winds up gathering metaphorical dust in the digital archives of the future."

Scully listened intently. Mulder agreed to stop looking into the darkness, so they could get as far away from it as possible. For the past eighteen months, he had done just that, cataloging cases instead of investigating them and writing a book of his experience and expertise. He had even contributed to a number of museum exhibits, many of which featured artifacts related to the human understanding of the inexplicable, the supernatural, and the otherworldly. 

She witnessed his struggle, his constant restraint in the face of overwhelming temptation. He'd hear about some sheriff's department fumble on a promising case because they lacked resources and essential insight, yet somehow, he resisted the impulse to contact or join the investigation. On the few odd occasions when someone contacted Mulder and asked for his expertise, he restricted his participation to remote correspondence, providing ideas and theories without slipping away into the darkness. 

Mulder did all this because she had asked him, begged him, to leave it behind. Despite all his efforts, all his commitments, all his restraint, he couldn't shed that old skin. She told herself that drastic changes took time, that they needed a fresh start, that he'd grow into a new life once they had strong roots. 

She knew better, of course, but she also loved him. His consistent commitment to his promise to her left no room for doubt on his love for her, though with Mulder she never had any reason to doubt to begin with. 

Scully finished her tea as she measured her words. 

"Your research is more important than you think. Would you abandon an X-File just because it was a cold case?"

"A cold case is a few decades old, max," Mulder replied. "We'd need a whole new word for a case that took place in another millennium."

"You'd still look into it," she said.

"Probably."

"The last case we worked on together, I know I said I couldn't take it, and I can't, but... a cold case wouldn't be like that."

"Scully, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I wasn't talking about you avoiding all criminal cases. I just meant..."

"Just active cases?"

"You were the one who convinced me that the truth was out there and worth finding," she replied. 

Mulder sat back, perplexed. "Uh, well, the reason I brought this up, or part of it, is that I got a call today from Skinner. About a job."

"With the FBI?"

"Not exactly. There's a local detective who has been rubbing all the right people the wrong way. He could be dirty, but Skinner thinks otherwise," he replied. "He might just be another guy trying to change the world, one truth at a time."

"And he wants you to... what, exactly?"

He replied, "Consult on an informal inquiry."

"Mulder, did you... have you already said yes?"

"Of course not. I'm not exactly happy about the FBI being back in our lives, but Skinner wasn't asking me to hop back on the bandwagon. He thinks I can help this guy."

"So you're considering it?" she asked.

He nodded his head, yes. "What do you think?"

"I'm surprised, maybe even a little shocked. I don't know what to think."

"Neither do I."

There was a long silence, and Scully wasn't sure if he felt guilty for asking or resentful at her lack of support. It was their first day in their new home, and somehow he was already being pulled away by shadows.

"I'm going to take a walk," he said.

"It's almost midnight."

"Just a quick stroll around the neighborhood, stretch my legs, clear my head. I'll be back before you're curled up under the covers," he said.

He leaned in for a kiss, short and sweet, and she cradled his cheek in her hand, a gentle reminder to return safety.

"The flashlight is on the kitchen counter," she whispered.

"Always looking out for me," he mused before he left.

 

Mulder explored the neighborhood, keeping to the well-lit areas. Only a handful of people were out, and he suspected many of them were insomniacs like himself, whiling away the dark hours when the only places open were twenty-four-hour diners and gas stations. 

"Good evening," he said to a woman in her forties as he passed by her lawn.

"Mister Mulder?" she said. "You probably don't remember me. We met earlier today."

"Sharon, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yeah, yeah, you do remember. What're you doing out so late? Didn't you just move here from the east coast? Figured you'd be tucked away in bed, what with it being three o'clock over there."

"Uh, well, actually, we drove, so no jet lag. Took us about three days of driving. I slept for the last leg of it, so now, of course, I can't sleep."

He tried to remember when the last time he made small talk with anyone. It felt like a very long time ago.

"What about you?" he asked. "Aren't you up awfully late?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure I am," she replied. "Past few months I've been working graveyard, which makes my days off a bit weird, sure. But I'm telling you, since I started handling the gardening at night, my skin has never been better. No sun means no sunscreen, no accidental burning, and my flower beds stay just right."

"That's very enterprising of you," he said. "I should be going. It was nice seeing you again, Sharon."

She waved goodbye as he continued down the street. Without anything to distract him, his mind drifted to Skinner's offer. A few years ago, he would've accepted the consulting job, not for the FBI, but for Skinner. But his tea with Scully had left him concerned over the impact on their relationship. Could he review a few local case reports about zombies and exploding guts without being drawn in? Did he have the strength to help an old friend without hurting the love of his life?

Before he could decide one way or another, something caught his attention: a high, piercing whimper. Without thinking about it, Mulder zeroed in on the source, leaving the sidewalk and following the noise. 

The whimpering came from a large dog hidden between a wooden fence and a thin layer of trees. As he got closer, he realized that it was a Leonberger, and it was badly injured.

"Hey fella," Mulder said. "Are you okay? It's okay, I just want to take a quick look at you."

He glanced around first, hoping that the owner would be nearby, but he saw no one. So he got close enough to the dog to check its injuries, and he nearly recoiled when he saw the small pool of blood that had formed on the ground beneath its forepaws. The Leonberger had a gash along its nose and mouth and, if the blood on its coat was any indication, additional injuries to the chest and front legs. 

Luckily, the dog stayed still while Mulder ran the flashlight over its flank and rear, but he didn't see anything else, though he wasn't sure if he could check for wounds on the underbelly. 

"Okay, come here, what's you name?" he said as he searched for the nametag on the collar. "Rex? Rex? Is that you?"

Rex responding to his name, which Mulder took as a good sign. 

"Come on, Rex, we're gonna get you some help and find your owners, come on," he said, gently leading the dog out of the cover of the trees. He was careful not to grab at Rex or yank on the collar.

Everything was going well until Rex faltered about half-way to the side walk, crashing to a full stop.

"Come on, Rex, it's not much farther. Rex! Rex, come on!" 

But the dog either couldn't or wouldn't budge, and Mulder suspected it was the former, given the amount of blood loss. He didn't have his cell phone, and his car was blocks away. If Rex couldn't walk, what could he do? Even if he could carry the dog, he doubted Rex would allow it. 

Not knowing what else to do, he shouted, "Help! Help! I need help! Injured dog! There's an injured dog! Help!"

He knew it was foolish, but the thought of leaving Rex, even briefly, made him cringe. What if he crawled off and hid somewhere?

"Hello?" someone said. "Hello? Is someone there?"

The speaker was a young woman, but he couldn't really see her. 

"Sharon, is that you?"

"No, I'm Juliette."

"Juliette? Hi. I'm Mulder, and this is Rex. He's bleeding, and I could really use a hand."

"What happened?"

"I honest don't know, but he's badly injured. I don't think he can walk any farther."

"That's okay. I've got a trolley back at my house. I'll be right back."

With that she ran off.

Mulder knelt down next to Rex, who was awkwardly lying on his side, panting in the darkness.

Mulder spoke to Rex as if reading a bedtime story. "When the Conquistadores explored the American continent, the s-called New World, they sometimes encountered forces that baffled him. They'd mark dangerous areas by carving warnings into trees or posts. About ten years ago, I found of these warnings from hundreds of years ago. _Ad noctum_ , into darkness. My partner and I were basically lost in the woods, and I'd been injured. That's when we found it, the warning, too late for it to be of any use, but we made it out anyway. So just hold on, okay, Rex? You wandered into darkness, but you can make it out again. Okay, Rex? That's a good boy."

"You really care about your dog," Juliette said, surprising Mulder with her approach.

"Actually, he's not mine," he replied.

"Really? You're good with him. He must like you," she said as she lined the trolley up with Rex. "You think you could get him to jump on?"

Mulder gently tugged on his collar, guiding Rex onto the trolley. It took the better part of five minutes to coax him on.

"I've already called the clinic, and the after-hours nurse will have a room ready. I know he's not yours, but I might need another set of hands or a person Rex trusts there helping me. Would you could with us?"

"I, uh, sure, I'd just need a phone. Did you say clinic?"

"Didn't I mention that I'm a vet?" she asked.

"No, you didn't, but all the more reason to be glad you found us." 

Mulder pushed the trolley, following Juliette to her car, which was waiting on the street for them. It took twenty minutes to get Rex into the car, down to the clinic, and into the medical room. During the car ride, he made a hasty and confusing call to Scully.

"I'm guessing your wife isn't happy?" Juliette asked as he hung up. 

"She does want us to save the dog, it's just... we moved in today."

 

Juliette Silverton was having the worst day of her life. She could tell because the highlight of her day was wandering outside and finding a stranger and an injured dog in a neighbor's yard. Mulder seemed smart and straightforward, and she found his kindness towards Rex endearing.

It almost made her forget that Nick had fled the house at the sight of her, or, rather, the new side of her, the _woged_ Hexenbiest. He'd reacted violently and with disgust and confusion before leaving with no particular destination in mind. 

The lights flickered, just thinking about Nick made her angry. She pushed it out of her mind, but it kept pushing its way back in. 

Mulder helped her with the instrument trays and getting Rex on the table. As she worked, it became easier to ignore the nagging thought, to focus solely on Rex.

The initial exam showed that the gash to the muzzle and neck were deep enough to need stitches, but not life threatening. The injuries to the chest and leg were another story. Something had broken several of his ribs, which explained the flail chest that she observed. He likely had pulmonary contusions as well, which explained his labored breathing.

"Rex is going to need an x-ray," she said. 

"Should I get the lab tech?" Mulder asked.

"We don't keep one on this late, but the nurse who let us in can help."

He nodded and ducked out of the room. 

Juliette focused on Rex, and for the first time, she sensed something about him. His heartbeat was slowing down, and he'd lost more blood than she suspected. Rex's breathing had been becoming more labored since the car. 

It was only then that Juliette realized that she acquired all this information without any equipment. Apparently, Hexenbiests could hear a heartbeat and detect activity in the blood vessels by simple proximity.

As if this realization gave her the idea, she took Rex's head in her hands and carefully examined the gash. She stared at it, focusing on the path it cut through his flesh. She imagined the natural process of clotting and scabbing speeding up, effectively closing the wound without need of stitches. 

Rex shifted and whined, as if in pain but too afraid to show his weakness to Juliette. She smiled. Here, she had the power, and she was the alpha. 

She blinked. 

The gash scabbed over. Had she known that would happen, or was that a lucky guess?

It didn't stop at a scab, though. The more she concentrated on the wound, the more it healed. Rex whimpered like a puppy trapped beneath the talons of a hawk, but he dared not move. By the time Mulder came back into the room, the gash was still visible but completely sealed.

"Doctor Silverton? The nurse says the x-ray is ready," Mulder said. 

How did he know her last name? He must've seen it on the door or heard the night nurse call her that.

"Thank you. Would you help me roll him there? And, Mulder, you can call me Juliette."

Mulder obliged, and they pushed the medical table down the hall.

"Wow, doc, that's incredible. No stitches?" he asked.

She shook her head. "The blood had stopped flowing a while ago and began to scab. I opted to use skin glue to keep the wound sealed until I can see the extent of his chest injury," she said, lying with no hesitation or remorse. "He'll probably still need some stitches, but one problem at a time."

The x-ray revealed hairline fractures of two ribs, but nothing more substantial. Had she managed to reset broken bones as well, or did she simply over-assess his injuries as flail chest due to multiple rib fractures?

She hadn't _woged_ , had she? No, she would've felt it. Didn't Hexenbiests _woge_ to tap into their powers? Yet she healed this dog without it.

Juliette remembered what Henrietta told her. "I've never seen anything like this before. I'm not sure how deep it goes or if it even stopped... This is how powerful you are... You don't have a choice."

For the first time, that didn't seem so bad.

"Is he going to be okay?" Mulder asked, speaking up for the first time in twenty minutes.

"Actually, yes, he will," she replied. "He'll need bandages, but his ribs are intact, just hairline fractures."

"Rex is one lucky dog," he said.

"You're right, whatever happened to him, it could've been much worse."

Mulder said, "Give yourself a little credit, doc. He'd still be bleeding and whining in someone's yard if it wasn't for you."

Juliette felt as if something was caught in her throat. She didn't know why at first.

"I, uh... this might sound strange but, thank you, Mulder," she said. "And you too for that matter, Rex."

"For dragging you back to work at one a.m.?"

"For reminding me who I am," she replied. "I had a rough day and... I guess I really needed this."

"Well, good," he replied. "Scully said she could pick me up, I just need to make a call."

"I don't want to ask you for more help, but there's no space for him at the clinic tonight," Juliette said. "With his injuries, he'd do better with people instead of locked up in a cage. Would you be able to take him home for tonight? Tomorrow we can get in touch with his owners. I can get their number and address from his microchip."

"I'd have to ask Scully, but, yeah, we've got room."

 

Scully couldn't protest or complain about the patched-up Leonberger spending the night, though she wished they'd had one day of peace and quiet to settle in. 

Rex was mild-mannered and friendly, which made his enormous size less overwhelming. Had he been a stray, she probably would've brought him home, too.

Mulder created a doggy bed by layering comforters, pillows, and towels on the floor of their bedroom. 

"I'm sorry," he said as they climbed into bed well past two o'clock.

"Sorry for what?"

"Wandering off into the dark on our first night here."

She rolled over to face him and smiled. "You went for a walk and found a wounded dog. There's nothing to apologize for. Right, Rex?"

Rex barked twice.

 

Scully woke up to find Mulder on the phone, redialing the same number over and over. 

"Morning," she said.

"Hey, Scully. I'm just trying to get through to Rex's people."

"Any luck?"

"No, they're not answering."

"Did you get the address?" she asked.

"Sort of," he replied. "I think whoever owns him moved here recently, because his chip gave us an out-of-state address."

"Do you have their name?" she asked. 

"Ronan Sawyer Prey," Mulder replied. "He's got a Montana address and phone number, and he's not picking up."

"Well, I can pick up some dog food and a leash while I run my errands today. Just until we can figure out where he belongs."

"Actually, I think I might've just solved that one," Mulder said. "Ronan Sawyer Prey didn't move to Portland, but his older sister, Trina Prey Quarry, has a house in her name two streets over."

"How long did it take you to figure that out?" Scully asked. 

"I tried looking for houses owned or rented by anyone with the last name of Prey. When that didn't pan out, I turned to social media. Luckily, Rex's owner is the only Ronan Sawyer Prey in Montana that bothered with Facebook. His entire family is on it, to, including Trina Quarry."

"Social media and real estate records," she said. "It's almost like you're a detective."

"The power of the internet, Scully."

"I can go by," she said. "What's the address?"

"Are you sure?"

"I've got errands, and one of us should be here with Rex. It makes more sense for me to stop by. You said it was just two streets over."

Mulder jotted down the address, and she decided walking would be faster. 

The neighborhood was bustling. The streets were filled with children waiting for buses and people heading off for work. Scully felt elated by all the activity, by being part of a community again, even as the new person nobody really knew.

She had grown used to a long commute to an isolated home. Mulder had taken care of her and filled wherever they lived with a vibrant energy that animated everything around her, but they were always alone on that island. She had forgotten what it was like to step outside her door and see new faces.

It took only a few minutes to reach the Quarry residence. When she knocked on the door, it creaked open. Someone had left it ajar.

"Hello?" Scully said. "I don't know if you know this, but your door is opened. Maybe that's how your dog got out last night. I'm a new neighbor. Hello?"

There was blood on the doorframe. It could be that Rex was injured inside, then ran outside, but that didn't seem right. She opened the door all the way, almost certain in what she was going to find.

The body of a young man lay crumpled in the living room. Scully rushed inside and checked his vitals, even though the sheer size of the blood pool around him made it clear he was dead. He had no pulse. 

She took a moment to steady herself before calling Mulder, then nine-one-one.

>   
>  _Ad noctum_ , into darkness. It's posted as a warning, and not just to stay away. Once you wander in, be sure it doesn't follow you back, because it'll cling to you and hide in your shadow, and when you're not looking, it'll slither out to spread its ilk and ire. Then, suddenly, the darkness is all around you, stealing away what little light you've stolen for yourself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Term Reference and Pronunciation Guide**  
>  The following universe-specific terms were referenced in this chapter. A single asterisk (*) indicates that the term has been augmented/modified from canon. A double asterisk (**) indicates terms original to Addendum GW.
> 
>  **wesen** (pronounced VES-sin) - the collective term for the various types or species of parahuman beings that can be seen by Grimms.
> 
>  **woge** (pronounced VOL-guh, translated from German as 'wave' or 'surge') - the term used to describe the transformation between human appearance and the other being or nature of any _wesen_ (e.g. when Monroe _woges_ , his Blutbad nature appears, and he has wolf-like features)


	2. Among the Leaves so Green-o

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Burkhardt and Griffin investigate a homicide that appears to have no motive. Juliette and Nick flounder in the uncharted waters of their new relationship dynamic. Monroe and Rosalee attempt to find a cure, but find themselves drawing an impossible (yet quite likely) conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for pronunciation of original terms

> The keeper would a-huntin' go  
> And under his arm he carried a bow  
> All for to shoot the merry little doe  
> \--Traditional British Folk Song, "The Keeper"

 

Hank Griffin arrived on the scene just past eight o'clock, roughly twenty minutes after he got the call. Forensics was on the scene, and the coroner arrived just before Hank. He saw six officers in the immediate area, and four of them seemed to be taking statements from neighbors.

"Excuse me," a woman said as Hank got out of his car. "Are you a detective? Are you the detective on this case?"

"Yes, ma'am, I'm Detective Hank Griffin," he said.

"I've been waiting since the cops arrived," she said. "My name is Jenny Stiles. I'm staying with the Kirklands, they're number six-two-six, and - "

"Ms. Stiles," Hank said, interrupting. "The officers on the scene can take your statement."

"They already have," she said. "But I don't think they're taking it very seriously. I'm a photographer. I came here to do shots of Portland, and last night I was testing my camera settings out here."

"Are you saying you have photographs of the area last night?" Hank asked.

"Yes," she said. "And I saw a man wandering around. There was something very wrong with him, Detective Griffin. Scared me so bad that I went running back inside."

"Could you describe him?" Hank asked.

"It was dark, but I could identify his voice. He was talking to himself. That was one of the reasons he scared me."

"Did you give your name and contact information to the officer that took your statement?"

"Of course I did."

"And what about the negatives from the camera?" Hank asked. "We'll need to process them."

"Detective, it's the twenty-first century, even photographers use digital cameras these days. I just finished transferring them," she said as she handed him a USB stick.

"Thank you for your help," Hank said. "I may contact you later with more questions."

Jenny seemed disappointed that Hank wanted her to go, but before she could say anything else, they were interrupted. 

"Hank?" Wu said.

"Have a good day, ma'am," Hank said to Jenny before following Wu into the house.

"Seems like you got yourself a fan there, Hank," Wu said.

"She's a possible witness," he replied.

"Jenny Stiles? She's been talking to officers all morning, wandering around the crime seen, trying to see what's happening. I'd call her a nosy neighbor, except she lives in Seattle."

"So she's what? A crime scene rubbernecker?" Hank asked.

"Either that or a reporter," Wu replied. "Anyway, it's good you're here. We've been waiting on a detective."

"Waiting on? What about Nick? His house is just two streets over."

"Couldn't get him on the phone," Wu said. "Went over to his house, Juliette said he wasn't there and that he hadn't been all night."

"Did you try Monroe?"

"Yeah, he said he'd go by the trailer as soon as he could," Wu replied. "We need to get things moving here. Forensics wants to start processing, and we've got an expert witness on our hands."

"What do you mean, an expert?"

"I don't want to spoil the surprise."

Wu led Hank into the living room where the body was. Hank first checked out the body, and as he moved on to observing the scene, the coroner, Doctor Parker Harper, joined them and began to inspect the body herself.

The victim was a young man in his early thirties, and he was sprawled out with a look of shock on his face. Two arrows stuck out of his chest, and he had an additional wound on his left thigh as well as blood on his hands. There was a third arrow, broken and covered in blood.

"Do we think he pulled this one out?" Hank asked.

"I wouldn't say that," Harper said. "If he pulled it out, there'd only be an entry wound. Here we have a through-and-through."

Wu said, "See how it's broken? Like he snapped it off right before fletching, so he could pull the shaft of the arrow through. If it wasn't a through-and-through, he might've pushed it through himself, especially if he thought it was barbed."

"How do you know so much about arrows?" Hank asked.

He replied, "Don't underestimate the accuracy of modern video games, Hank. And, as far as I can tell, these are probably bolts, not arrows, but the only real difference is what fired them. Crossbows fire bolts, bows fire arrows. We won't know until we processes them."

"Good, what else do we know?" Hank asked.

"Victim is Ronan Sawyer Prey, goes by all three names apparently. Not sure how important that is. It appears the ironically named Prey was shot three times," Wu replied. "Doctor Harper?"

"Lividity tells me Prey was shot first in the thigh, which like you said, he probably removed. Then he was shot two more times in the chest. I'll have to open him up to be sure, but it looks like one punctured his lung, the other his heart. Lividity also tells me that he died here," she said. "I can't be sure of anything else until I finish the autopsy."

Hank said, "Thanks, Parker. Wu, who found the body?"

"That'd be our expert witness," Wu replied. "New neighbor, Doctor Dana Scully, came by to tell him she found his dog, found the body instead. She's outside."

"Anything else?" Hank asked.

"The vic doesn't live here. This house is in his sister's name. We got a hold of her. She and her family were on vacation, but they're headed back to town as we speak."

"Thanks, Wu."

Hank ducked outside and made his way over to the woman Wu had indicated earlier.

"Doctor Scully?" Hank said. "I'm Detective Hank Griffin. Can I ask you a few questions?"

"Yes, of course."

"Can you walk me through what happened this morning?"

"Last night, my partner found an injured dog named Rex. He took him to the vet, and they were able to get his owner's information from his chip. We kept him overnight because we thought calling at two in the morning wouldn't be appropriate, so I walked over here this morning at a more reasonable hour. The door opened when I knocked, probably because it wasn't latched. I saw blood, so I called for anyone home and pushed the door open. And then I saw him. I checked his vitals, but he was dead. Lividity suggests he died on his back, just as he is now, about four hours ago. That's when I called for help."

"Lividity?" Hank said. "Let me guess, coroner?"

"Actually, I was an FBI Agent for eleven years," she replied. "Though I did do autopsies as part of my job. I'm a medical doctor."

"It's always good to have trained witnesses. Can you clear something up for me?"

"I can certainly try," she replied.

"Who did you come here looking for?"

"Rex's owner, Ronan Prey."

Hank asked, "How did you know he was here? The mailbox says 'Quarry,' and Prey's address is listed as Montana. So why did you come here to talk with him?"

"Rex's chip gave us a Montana phone and address. When no one answered the phone, my partner started looking for a local address. I believe he found Trina Quarry's name from Ronan's Facebook."

"But you knew the victim would be here?" Hank asked.

"Actually, I didn't, but even if I met his sister or brother-in-law, I figured they'd help me with the dog."

"You said the dog was injured?"

She replied, "Yes, he had deep gashes on his muzzle and neck and fractured ribs."

"We should bring him in, have our techs take a look at him," Hank said. "And we'll need to talk to the vet that treated him."

"You think Rex was involved in this murder?" Scully asked.

"If he was with his owner, he could've attacked the killer. There may be forensic evidence. Where is the dog now?"

"He's at home." 

"We're going to need you to bring the dog in, and your... partner, you said?" 

She replied, "Yes, he found Rex. You want him to come in for a statement as well, don't you?"

"Yes, we will. Can I have your partner's name?"

"Fox Mulder."

 

Nick woke up with a sharp pain in his neck. He opened his eyes to see a sketched picture of a Hexenbiest staring back at him. He flinched away from it.

"Whoa, Nick!" Monroe said. "Are you all right?"

"Monroe?" he said, still foggy from sleep.

"Yeah, I knocked on the door, called your name, but you were sleeping like a rock," Monroe replied. "You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, that's just a harsh way to wake up in the morning," Nick said, indicating the Hexenbiest's _woged_ face.

Monroe nodded and replied, "Nah, you'd get used to it."

"You think?" Nick asked.

"Well, yeah. Pretty much every _kehrseite-schlich-kennen_ and _wesen_ couple go through a whole adjustment period. It's not just accepting the person's other identity, though. For a lot of people, it's learning to recognize their _woged_ face. I mean apart from other _wesen_ , obviously. Actually, come to think about it, _grundverschiedene_ couples go through something like it, too. I can tell _woged_ Blutbad apart, no problem, but when it comes to Fuchsbau or Eisbiber, it's much harder."

"So you're saying if Rosalee was _woged_ in a room full of other _woged_ Fuchsbau, you wouldn't be able to identify her?" Nick asked.

"Well of course I could identify my own wife," Monroe replied. "But when we first got together? No way. I might've been able to do it by scent but not by sight."

Everything Monroe said made Nick feel simultaneously hopefully and despondent. If born- _wesen_ even had trouble with _woged_ identities, then was it at all surprising that Nick struggled with it? But if it was possible to adjust, what the hell was Nick doing in the trailer staring at a sketched image? Why wasn't he with Juliette, fighting for their future?

"Nick?" Monroe said. "Are you okay?"

"Juliette's a Hexenbiest," he blurted.

"Uh, no she's not. She's been with you for, like, forever. There's no way she could hide that from a Grimm for so long."

"No, she wasn't a Hexenbiest before, but she is one now. I've seen it, Monroe. It happened because she helped me get my powers back," Nick replied.

Monroe was completely stunned by the idea. He was so shocked that he found a seat on the trailer's couch, as if suddenly disoriented. 

Nick continued, "This isn't some crazy theory. She showed me. She _woged_ for me last night. That's how she killed that Manticore bounty hunter and how she almost killed Adalind. She found out weeks ago and went to the Captain for help instead of me."

"Well, yeah, of course," Monroe said. "Nick, Grimms and Hexenbiests are not friends. There's a reason that your family has an entire volume dedicated to them."

"Okay, fine, I get keeping it from me," Nick said. "I'd never hurt her, but I get why she'd be concerned. But she went to Renard for help, not you or Rosalee."

"Nick, if she is a Hexenbiest, and that's a big if," Monroe began, "then it makes sense that she'd seek out her own kind for help. Who else would understand her? Me and Rosalee are _wesen_ , sure, but only another Hexenbiest could teach her about herself and her powers."

"She said that there's nothing we can do," Nick said quietly. "My blood won't work because of how she got her powers, and whoever the Captain sent her to said whatever happened can't be reversed."

Monroe got to his feet, determined. "Right, it can't happen. Just like how there was no way to stop an Excandesco, right? Or like how you couldn't help a _grausen_ because he was possessed instead of infected? Or maybe how there was nothing we could about Volcanalis, or no way for you and Hank to stop that ghost from abducting and killing kids on Halloween."

"You mean La Llorona, but we've no idea if we stopped her or just saved her victims that one year."

"But you saved them, didn't you?" Monroe said. "Your ancestors couldn't figure out La Llorona. My ancestors couldn't figure out _grausen_. All anyone ever bothered to say about them was that they were some force beyond us, something that couldn't be understood, much less stopped. The only thing we knew about either of them was that they scared and confused the crap out of a lot of people for a long time. But you saved those kids. Nick, you are the first person to save a _grausen_."

"Juliette figured that out," Nick replied sadly. 

"Which is why we're not just gonna sit around and accept a 'nothing can be done' reply from some random Hexenbiest we've never met. Whatever's happening to Juliette, we'll find a way to fix it. In fact, I'm going right now to the Spice Shop to talk with Rosalee. We'll call you when we know more."

Monroe opened the trailer door, but Nick stopped him.

"Monroe, not that I don't appreciate it, but why did you come here?" Nick asked.

"Oh, right, Wu asked me to come by," Monroe replied. "He said he and Hank had been calling you all morning but couldn't reach you, and you weren't at home. Which reminds me, I think you have a case."

Nick glanced at his cell phone. The battery was dead, so he checked his watch. It was nearly ten.

"Oh, crap," he mumbled. "I've got to get to work!"

 

Nick went straight to the station and plugged his phone in. He had six new messages, all from Hank and Wu.

"Nick, I thought you'd be on the scene," Captain Renard said as he approached from his office.

"I would be, but I got held up."

"By what?"

"Juliette told me."

Renard hesitated before he said, "Is now really the time to talk about this?"

"No, it's not," he replied. "But it is what held me up this morning."

"Are you up to speed on the case?"

"I will be in about five minutes," Nick replied.

"Good. The victim's family is in the conference room. They were on vacation. We've already checked their alibis. They've all been cleared. But we don't know much about the vic, so anything you can get out of the family will help."

"All right."

Renard nodded and returned to his office.

Nick quickly reviewed the report on his desk. The victim was Ronan Sawyer Prey, autopsy pending. The crime scene photos showed that he was shot with three bolts or arrows, hard to tell which from just looking at them. He died in the living room of his sister's house.

Prey worked as a hiking and camping guide. He spent almost all of his life leading people through the Rockies or Appalachians. He had impressive credentials: specialized first aid training for in-the-field (or rather, in-the-mountains) emergency treatment, tracking and avoiding wild animals, and certifications in pretty much anything related to camping, hiking, and fishing. It seemed like the only thing Prey didn't have was a hunting license.

Nick collected his thoughts and went to the conference room. There were five people inside: a man, approximately age forty-five; a woman, around the same age; a teenaged girl about fifteen; a teenaged boy around eleven; and a young boy, probably age eight. None of them hid their grief.

The teenaged daughter cried freely, and in the next instant she _woged_. Her mother soon followed, maybe as a kind of comfort. They were some kind of deer _wesen_. They had beautiful doe eyes and intricate antlers. 

He waited a minute to allow them to complete the _woge_ before entering the room. 

"Hello, I'm Detective Burkhardt," he said. 

"I'm Weylin Quarry," the man said. "This is my wife Trina, and our children. That's Kegan, Maddox, and Bowdyn."

"Good to meet you all. I'm sorry it's not under better circumstances, and I'm sorry for you loss."

"Do you have any news for us? The man on the phone just told us to come straight to the station because our house is a crime scene," Weylin said. 

"And that my uncle is dead," Maddox added.

"Yes, honey," Trina said, patting him on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry, we don't have any more information at this time, but I was hoping to speak with you about your brother," Nick replied. "There's a room just down the hall."

Trina nodded and followed Nick into one of the interrogation rooms.

"Usually we'd talk at my desk, but the bull pen is pretty busy so it might be easier to do this in here," Nick explained. 

"It's fine," Trina said. "What would you like to know?"

"I noticed that your brother didn't have a hunting license. Did he ever hunt, trap, or work with any hunting materials?"

Trina shook her head, no. "The closest he ever got to hunting was fishing, and he's never trapped anything in his life. Ronan Sawyer could barely stand hurting the worms he baited his hooks with."

"Is there anyone in your family who has experience with a crossbow or archery?" Nick asked.

"No, not at all. I don't know if what you've read about my brother has given you the wrong impression, but he's the black sheep of the family. We all love the outdoors, but he's the first Prey to fish in four generations."

"Trina, I'm asking because your brother was shot with bolts or arrows. Do you have anything like that in your house?"

"No, of course not," Trina replied. "Wait, are you saying that someone shot him with an arrow when he was in our home?"

"We aren't sure of anything yet," Nick replied. He added, "It's possible that he was shot and ran inside to safety."

It wasn't entirely a lie, though Nick could tell from the crime scene photos alone that Ronan probably died in the house. But the idea of such a thing occurring in her home terrified Trina, so he comforted her with the cushion of unknown facts.

Nick continued, "Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt your brother?"

She replied, "No, he spent his time guiding people on hikes and camping trips, and none of his clients had a bad thing to say about him."

"Any romantic relationships that maybe ended badly?"

"No."

"Is there any... _wesen_ cause I should know about?" Nick asked quietly.

"Did you just say _wesen_?"

"Yes," he replied. "I saw you and your daughter _woge_ , and I know there are some things you can't tell the police, mostly because they won't believe you. But you can tell me."

"I didn't know that Portland had one of us in the police department," she said warily.

"All I'm interested in in figuring out what happened to your brother."

"What are you?" she asked.

"You first."

"I thought you knew, I'm a Fiadh-chalma," she replied. "We're known for outrunning our problems. The last cop I knew was a Steinadler, but you don't seem like that."

"Most _wesen_ deny what they are when I bring it up," he replied. "I'm a Grimm."

Trina stood up, backed away, and _woged_. She panicked when she saw Nick's Grimm eyes. She pushed her chair, and it splintered into three pieces. That was when Nick noticed that her hands had taken the shape of solid hooves.

Then it all stopped. Trina's antlers and hooves receded, and she cowered in front of the two-way mirror. Her fear was written all over her face, and in this moment, she was more afraid of herself than Nick.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I, uh, I've never had that happen before," she replied, staring at what remained of her chair.

"It's just a chair," Nick said.

He took the third chair from the other side of the table and placed it in front of Trina. 

"I'm a cop, Trina, and like I said, the only thing I want is to figure out what happened to your brother. Please, sit."

She obliged, though she seemed like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Your brother's home address is listed in Montana. What was he doing here in Portland?" 

"He was housesitting for us while we were on vacation," Trina replied. 

"Who else knew he was here?" Nick asked. "Relatives? Friends? Coworkers?"

"A few of the neighbors met him before we left, so they wouldn't think he was a squatter or something. And my parents and our siblings knew, of course. He probably posted it on his online profile thing. He was always doing that."

"So anyone with access to his online profile could've known he was in Portland?" Nick asked.

"That's right."

"Does your brother know anyone else in the area?" he asked. "Can you think of anyone he might've been with last night or yesterday? It can help us establish a timeline."

"As far as I know, the only people he knew were our neighbors, but he has friends in Seattle. They might've come down. I don't know them, though, but everything should be on his phone and computer."

"Thank you," Nick said. "This card has my number and my partner's - Detective Griffin - number. If you think of anything else, please call us."

"How do you do this?" Trina asked. "Sit here and talk to me like you're just... like this is all normal."

"I was a cop before I was a Grimm, so sitting here and talking with you like this is normal for me," he replied. "For now, I'm going to have officers take you and your family to pick up whatever you need from home. It's still a crime scene, so you'll need to stay with friends or in a hotel for a few days."

 

Hank and Wu returned to the station and spent half an hour exchanging information with Nick.

"I looked into the arrows," Wu said. "And, yes, they are arrows and not bolts. I found the local manufacturer, and lucky for us, they're custom arrows, ordered for a custom reflex bow owned by a guy named Daniel Davies. I haven't gotten a hold of him yet, but right now he's in Seattle at the University of Washington, at least according to his Facebook profile, cell phone tower usage, and credit cards. No indication he's been in Portland in the past month."

"He could still be our guy," Hank said. "Covering his tracks by having someone use his credit card and phone while he's here in Portland."

"Which is why I asked Seattle PD to pick him up," Wu said.

"Did anything turn up on canvas?" Nick asked.

"Let's see, according to one neighbor, Danielle Schafer, Prey was a good-old boy. His family is nice, real outdoor types. Another neighbor, Joe O'Conner, said Prey walked around in his underwear all the time," Wu said.

"Given how hot it's been lately, who could blame him?" Hank asked.

"Then we've got my personal favorite, the rubbernecking tourist Jenny Stiles and her digital photos that we haven't looked through yet," Wu said. "She has a criminal record for trespassing, B and E, and assault. We've got officers tailing her, but she's so interested in the case it's hard to imagine her running, even if she did do it."

"Stiles identified Steven Briggs as the man she saw last night," Hank added. "She heard him talking to an officer who found him wandering the neighborhood this morning. Even if Stiles has a criminal record, Briggs is still the closest thing we got to a suspect so far."

"Except he's got an alibi," Wu said. "Officers followed up with Jason Anderson, Briggs' roommate, and he confirms he was home last night sometime around midnight. Stiles, on the other hand, has no alibi. The Kirklands were all sound asleep by ten."

"Do we have a time of death?" Nick asked. 

"Harper said it happened between eleven and one," Hank replied. 

"So Briggs is still a possibility," Nick said. "That's three suspects - Stiles, Briggs, and Davies - but none with any connection to our vic or motive to kill him."

"No connection that we've found so far," Wu said. 

"We should check for any hunting licenses or any indication that they've trained in archery," Hank suggested. 

"Prey's sister told me that her brother didn't have any enemies or exes that could be involved. In fact, the only people he knew in Portland were a few neighbors he met this week. I've gone through his phone and e-mail to see if he met with anybody and came up empty," Nick said. "Our vic is _wesen_. His sister told me they're called Fiadh-chalma. They're sort of like reindeer."

"Never thought I'd hear that," Hank commented.

Nick began, "So I thought I'd check the trailer - "

"Actually," Wu interrupted. "We got a statement from the guy who found Prey's dog last night. According to him, last night one of his neighbors helped him save Rex, namely Juliette Silverton."

Nick felt like he'd been punched in the gut.

"You okay? 'Cuz you don't look like it," Wu said.

Nick replied, "I fell asleep in the trailer. My phone died. I missed calls from pretty much everyone... just one of those days."

"I hear that," Hank said.

"So, what do we know about this _wesen_?" Wu asked.

"Nothing, which is why one or both of you should check the trailer, maybe even call Monroe if you can't find anything, while I follow up with Juliette on the dog," Nick replied.

"I'll take the trailer," Wu offered.

"Then I guess I'll be looking through the photos and following up on the autopsy," Hank said.

 

Nick went home for lunch after leaving Juliette a message. He showered and changed, but he didn't feel any cleaner. He dreaded the idea of speaking with Juliette again, but he desperately missed her, too. Things had been strained between them for the last few weeks, and Nick assumed that everything would go back to normal, that they would reconnect the way they always had before.

But now he wasn't so sure.

"Nick?" Juliette shouted from downstairs. "I got your message."

He went downstairs, his heart beating out of his chest. He found her sitting in the living room.

"I'm... I'm sorry about last night," he said. "I shouldn't have run out the door."

"You were out all night."

"I fell asleep in the trailer."

"I'm not one of your cases," she replied. "You can't go to the trailer for answers about me, Nick. I might've changed, but that hasn't."

"I know that I didn't react well, and I'm sorry. I just didn't know what to do. I wasn't... I wasn't prepared."

"Nick, I can't do this," she said. "I have a surgery after lunch, so I can't have this conversation right now. I came because you said you had questions for a case."

"What about tonight? Can we talk tonight?"

"That depends, will you be here, or hiding in the trailer?"

Nick replied, "I'll be here."

"Fine, what do you need to know for your case?" she asked.

"Last night a man named Mulder said he found an injured dog, and you helped him," he said.

"New neighbor," she said. "Found a dog, Rex, with serious injuries. We took him to the clinic, and after I treated Rex, Mulder took the dog home, said he'd get him back to his owner."

"His owner was found murdered in his home last night," Nick said. "Forensics is checking Rex out to see if he has any evidence, but since you treated him, I thought you could tell us about his injuries."

"Whatever evidence he had, you won't find it," she said. "He had a gash on his muzzle and neck, broken ribs, and bruised lungs."

"The owner was shot with a crossbow. Could the dog have gotten his injuries from a bolt or attacking the shooter?"

She nodded. "Yeah, of course he could've. The gash wasn't caused by a bolt, though, it was more like a whip injury. And his broken ribs could've been from a kick or something hard slamming into his chest, but you aren't going to get any evidence from Rex."

"But his injuries - "

She interrupted, "I didn't treat him as a vet, Nick. I healed him."

"You mean... you healed him with your Hexenbiest powers? With a potion or - "

She interrupted, "I thought about it. I imagined the healing process speeding up, and it just happened."

"That's...kind of amazing."

"I did it by accident. I didn't know that it would work like that."

He said, "You followed your instincts, and they led you right where you wanted to be."

"What?"

"It's just... that's how my powers work," he said. "Sometimes I just know something is the right thing to do, even though I don't know why."

"And what are your powers telling you now, about us?" Juliette asked.

"They're silent on the subject. You're not one of my cases, Juliette, and our relationship isn't, either."

"Would you be able to love me? Could a Grimm love a Hexenbiest?"

"Could you still love me? Would a Hexenbiest love a Grimm?"

"I asked first."

He replied, "I love you, Juliette. That will never change."

She looked relieved for a moment, but then she shook her head, no. "No, I can't. Nick, I already told you that I can't have this conversation right now."

"I know, I'm sorry, I didn't mean - "

"Rex is a Leonberger," she interrupted as she got to her feet. She spoke quickly as she said, "If he was involved in the attack, he'll recognize the attacker and won't be subtle about it. As a breed, they're usually only guard dogs in the sense that they scare intruders away with their size and bark. Well-socialized Leonbergers wouldn't attack except in defense, and Rex is clearly well-socialized. He's a hundred and thirty pounds and twenty-nine inches tall, so if he did attack someone, they'd have injuries. Not necessarily a dog bite, though, his breed is known for jumping up and pushing people over more than biting."

Juliette turned around and went to the door.

"Juliette," Nick said. 

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. 

"Thank you for your help," he said. "Good luck on your surgery, and I'll see you tonight."

"I hope so," she said as she left.

 

Monroe had had a very weird day. First, Sergeant Wu called him right after his Pilates and asked him to check if Nick was in the trailer. Then there was the entire Juliette-as-a-Hexenbiest conversation, which in itself was disturbing, and yet somehow he found himself in an even stranger exchange with Rosalee.

"It must be a passing manifestation," Rosalee insisted.

"Nick said she killed a Manticore and nearly killed Adalind," Monroe said. "Since Juliette went up against both of them, separately, and is still alive, I'm thinking, you know, that it's true. If there were some kind of passing manifestation of a Hexenbiest, there's no way she'd be strong enough to take on a Manticore who works as a bounty hunter or a Hexenbiest like Adalind."

"Monroe, it's not possible," Rosalee said. " _Wesen_ are born, not made. Hexenbiests and Zauberbiests only seem unique because methods of manipulating their gene expression have been known for centuries." 

"You mean the whole blood of a Grimm thing?" Monroe asked.

"I can't explain how it works," she said. "But somehow it affects the _wesen_ genes, suppressing them. Since people figured this out a long time ago - long before anybody knew about genetics, let alone genetic modification - it was classified as magic or supernatural in nature, just like the _woge_ and everything else to do with _wesen_ back then. But we know better now, Monroe. We know that being _wesen_ is inherited. The only way Juliette could be a Hexenbiest now is - "

"If she was born one," Monroe said, completing her sentence.

"And she wasn't. We've known her for years. Have you seen anything that made you think she was _wesen_? And what about that coma she fell under and the amnesia she had after it? None of that would've happened to a Hexenbiest."

Monroe nodded along as Rosalee spoke. Then he said, "You're right, obviously. Hexenbiests have natural resistance to the influences of other Hexenbiests, which means she's not _wesen_ and whatever's going on now is just a temporary, albeit terrifying, thing. Unless..."

"Unless...?" Rosalee prompted when Monroe didn't continue.

"Unless she's a _kehrseite-gentrager_ ," Monroe said.

"A _kehrseite-gentrager_ Hexenbiest wouldn't have any of their immunities or _wesen_ capabilities because the gene is there, but it's not expressed," she said, following his train of thought.

"That would also explain why you, me, and Nick haven't seen her _woge_ or do anything _wesen_ -like," Monroe said. "Even Juliette wouldn't know about it, unless her parents told her."

"Wait a minute," Rosalee said. "The only way for Juliette to be a _kehrseite-gentrager_ is if one of her parents was _wesen_ , and not just any _wesen_ but Hexenbiest or Zauberbiest."

"Unless both of her parents were _kehrseite-gentrager_ ," Monroe suggested. "Then there's a one in four chance that she'd be a _kehrseite-gentrager_. Rare, maybe, but it happens."

"That's much more unlikely," Rosalee said. "And that would mean that at least two of her grandparents were _wesen_ , and one would definitely have to be Hexenbiest or Zauberbiest. Either way, we're talking about _wesen_ heritage that nobody bothered to tell her about. That's not the kind of secret you can keep from a family member."

"Right, I mean, I have exactly one cousin that's a _kehrseite-gentrager_ , and when my aunt and uncle realized he should've _woged_ a long time ago, they tried to keep the whole our-entire-family-is-Blutbaden thing to themselves. He was an only child, so they were able to pull it off well into his teenage years. They had to avoid family reunions, though, and eventually he found out when some of my more belligerent cousins decided to celebrate his sweet sixteen by taking him on a hunt in the woods. You can imagine his confusion, their confusion, blood everywhere. To be clear, it was rabbit's blood, I think. Animal, definitely, I think... let's just say, they opened the world's largest can of worms and cousin Larry found out he was both a _kehrseite-gentrager_ and a vegetarian on the same night."

Rosalee asked, "What do we know about Juliette's family?"

"Uhm... she must've mentioned them before, right? I mean, who can know someone for three years and not mention their parents or family members?" Monroe said. "I can't even go a week without mentioning someone I'm related to."

"A week? Try a day," Rosalee replied affectionately. "I know she's mentioned her grandmother to me a few times, but only in the past tense. And I can't remember Juliette saying anything about siblings or her parents."

"Which is especially weird considering she went into a coma and had amnesia," he said. "I know it was Nick-only amnesia, but it was still amnesia. We were the only ones who visited her when she was in the hospital, and she chose to live with a complete stranger rather than to stay with a parent or sibling. Now that I think about it, when she couldn't remember Nick, she asked me and Bud - of all people - about their relationship."

"So chances are, her family is all dead," Rosalee concluded. "Or she's estranged from whatever family she does have."

"And it's possible that she is a _kehrseite-gentrager_ and doesn't know about it," Monroe said. "Maybe that's why her family is estranged. I mean, that's what happened to cousin Larry, both before he knew and after he found out. It's not like he can join in on family reunion activities like hunting deer barehanded in the woods. I haven't heard from him since his college graduation which was, well, a really long time ago."

"Monroe, if any of this is true, that means that Juleitte was born a recessive Hexenbiest, and we activated her abilities," she said. "You, me, Nick, Trubel, the Captain's mother, anyone who helped Nick get his powers back. We did this to her."

Silence filled the Spice Shop for several minutes.

Rosalee gave a mirthless laugh. "It must be pretty bad if you can't think of anything to say," she said, putting her hand on his.

"I told Nick we'd figure something out," Monroe said.

"We did figure something out, just not a solution," Rosalee replied. "And we can't be sure, Monroe. Not without talking to Juliette and whatever family members we can get a hold of. There's still a chance this is completely reversible."

"So, what do we tell Nick?"

"We don't," Rosalee replied. "We need to talk to Juliette, not Nick, and I don't think it should be us, just me. Whatever happens next, Juliette needs to be involved, especially of her relatives are _wesen_. She has a right to know."

Before Monroe could reply, the phone rang. 

"Exotic Tea and Spice," Rosalee answered. "Sure, Wu, what do you need?"

 

Nick was having a very bad day. The investigation hadn't brought anything to light but a handful of nosy neighbors. Nobody with a bow or a dog bite turned up, and running down Ronan Sawyer's associates was a bust. Everyone alibied out. So far the working theory was a hunting accident that somehow precipitate a homicide.

He was about to leave the station when Juliette called. 

"Juliette, I'm on my way home now," he said as he answered the phone.

"Nick, I'm canceling."

"What?"

"I'm canceling tonight," she said. "Rosalee called me. I'm guessing you told her?"

"No, I told Monroe... I'm sorry, I guess I just thought that they already knew."

"It's fine, Nick. It's fine. But she called me and said she wanted to talk with me about it."

"All right, I'll pick you up."

"No," she said. "I know you're trying to help, Nick, but whatever Rosalee finds, whatever choices she gives me, I'm going to be the one to decide. It's my decision, not ours."

"I understand that. I just want to support you."

"Your first instinct was to try and reverse this, like you had to fix me," Juliette said. "But for the first time, I've been able to protect myself in your world, Nick. Maybe this was meant to happen."

"I guess that's possible," Nick said, though he couldn't hide the disappointment in his voice.

"See, you say that, but I can tell that you don't mean it," she replied. "But if you want to make this work, then you've got to make peace with the fact that, even if there is a way to reverse this, I might choose not to."

"Juliette, if that's what you want, then I'll support you," he replied. "I wasn't trying to fix you... I just wanted you to have a choice."

"I don't know how long I'll be at the Spice Shop," Juliette said, changing topics. "But for now it might be best if you sleep in the guestroom."

"Right, well, I'll see you tonight, maybe," he replied.

"Good night, Nick."

 

Hank went to Monroe's house as soon as he got his text, gladly abandoning his TV diner.

"See you got the message, too," Hank said to Nick.

"Yeah."

"You okay?" he asked.

"Not really."

Monroe opened the door before they even knocked. "Good, you're here. Wu and I have been waiting. We ordered Chinese."

Hank and Nick joined Wu and Monroe, helping themselves to generous portions of pork fried rice, beef with broccoli, and General Tao's chicken. 

"Nick, you look like Hell," Wu said. 

"Well, yeah, obviously," Monroe said. "If I were in his shoes, I'd look like Hell too."

"Why's that?" Hank asked. "Is something going on, Nick?"

"Uh, yeah, between me and Juliette," he said. "But we didn't come here to discuss that, right?"

Monroe switched gears. 

"Wu called the Spice Shop about something called a Fiadh-chalma. He couldn't find it in any of the Grimm anthologies," Monroe began.

"I did find something called a Carria-chalma. Captured a picture of the page with my phone, take a look," Wu said.

Hank glanced at the sketch of an elk-like _wesen_. 

"That's what they looked like," Nick said. 

"Trouble is, your ancestors didn't have much to say about them, except it was rumored to kill by crushing or trampling," Wu said. "One line in one book, and that's all they wrote."

"And when I heard what you were looking for, I was like, boy howdy," Monroe said.

"You've heard of them?" Nick asked.

Monroe replied, "Hell yeah I heard of them. First, Carria-chalma is for stags, and Fiadh-chalma for doe. They're the same species. They're a Celtic _wesen_ but not just any _wesen_ , _schierwesen_ , sometimes called _zweifachwesen_ but that term's kinda antiquated if you ask me or, you know, any _wesen_ born after the Enlightenment."

"Beyond being harder to pronounce, how's that different from a regular _wesen_?" Wu asked.

"A handful of _wesen_ species possess the ability to take on complete animal form," Monroe explained. "Not to be confused with some species where it's incidental because the _wesen_ form has so much similarity with the human form that you can't tell the difference when they _woge_ , you know, like primate or bear _wesen_. I mean, some Jagerbar look just like bears when they transform, provided they're naked and really pissed off, but what I'm talking about now is completely different, a fundamentally different kind of _woge_ that's gotta be learned. Any _schierwesen_ that figures out how to do it can take on a complete animal form of their _wesen_ selves, even with drastically different anatomy. From what I hear, it's incredible, a sort of return to nature that they have - I mean, if the individual chooses to learn it - in addition to the ordinary _woge_ that you all have seen before. And once Wu started asking me about them and said that bit about the Grimms not writing much about them, I thought, hey, maybe it's because of the animal form. I mean, Grimms wouldn't waste their time hunting down some animal that trampled someone to death."

"You're saying that these Faidh- and Carria-chalma can _woge_ into a full deer?" Nick asked. 

"More like Irish elk, if we can trust your ancestors' sketch," Hank commented. 

"Definitely, but they're closer to reindeer-size," Monroe said. "Those Irish elk things were huge. You know, before they went extinct."

"Could it be possible that this is just some kind of hunting accident?" Hank asked. "Our vic would look like a deer or elk, right? Our guy sees him and takes a shot, not knowing that it's actually a person." 

"Maybe, except hunting season for deer in Portland runs October to November, and he was found inside a house," Wu replied.

"Do they have any kind of natural enemies?" Hank asked. "Someone who might've killed Prey just for being a, uh, Carria-chalma?"

Monroe replied, "Actually, no. If anything, they're known for their ability to guide, literally and figuratively. Through the woods or through personal revelations and spiritual turmoil. In fact, they're the origin of the symbolism of the white stag. You know, that thing that is always desired but always just out of reach."

"So we still got nothing," Hank said. 

"Are you kidding?" Monroe said. "There are _schierwesen_ in Portland. That's incredible!"

"Really?" Wu said. "I thought Portland was full of _wesen_."

"Yeah, but _schierwesen_ are old school and don't really migrate," Monroe said. "For an old world Celtic species to be in America? That's... kind of a big deal."

"But probably not related to the case," Hank said. "Those photographs we got from Stiles did capture a person, but you couldn't make out who. I gave them to the IT guys to see if they could enhance them and make an ID."

They spent the next minute or so eating in silence.

"Well, if we're done with the case, then I guess I should fill you guys in," Nick said.

"Ah, the reason you look like Hell," Wu said. "Let me guess, Juliette's pregnant?"

"No, no, I wish that's... no, she's not," Nick said. "She's a Hexenbiest."

And that was just the start of that conversation.

 

Nick woke to the sound of his cell ringing, but it took him a few moments to find his phone in the guestroom. 

"Burkhardt," he answered.

"Nick," Hank replied. "I just got a call from officers responding to a nine one one. Jason Anderson was attacked in his home. He was taken to the hospital, not likely talking anytime soon."

"You think it's the same guy who killed Prey?" Nick asked.

"All I know is, they're holding the scene for us," Hank said. "And since it's barely six in the morning, we should get there sooner rather than later. I don't want to deal with cranky forensics techs."

 

After leaving Juliette a note and a pot of coffee, Nick met Hank at the residence of Jason Anderson and Steven Briggs.

"Are you the detectives?" an on-scene officer asked. "I'm Officer Lexus Herald, I was the first on scene."

"Can you run down your response on this?" Hank asked.

"Nine one one received a call from this house. I was on patrol, got the call, and responded. That was around five fifteen this morning. When I arrived, the door was open. Not just unlocked, but open. I called inside. No response. I went in and found a young man unconscious on the floor. He had a head wound. I called for EMTs. While we were waiting, he regained consciousness briefly and told me his name, Jason Anderson, and said his roommate attacked him. He tried to say more, but he was too weak. He remained conscious until a few minutes after the EMTs got here. They took him to the hospital, and I secured the scene."

"Thank you, Officer Herald," Nick said. "We'll take it from here."

Hank started in the living room, while Nick went to the living room. He found signs of a struggle: overturned chairs, blood on the walls and floor, and indentations along the wall and dining room table, likely made during a bodily collision. The fight in here had been furious, like a tornado touching down.

"Nick, you need to see this!" Hank yelled. 

The Grimm joined his partner in the living room. Hank had on a pair of crime scene gloves, so Nick followed suit and snapped some on, too.

"You found something?" Nick asked.

"Sure did," he replied.

Hank bent down behind the sofa and picked up an awkwardly shaped object. It was the body of a short reflex bow with a broken limb and bowstring. 

"Any chance that's blood?" Nick asked, pointing to a brownish-red discoloration on the string.

"Don't know, but is it just me, or does this look like a bite mark?" Hank asked as he indicated the break on the limb. 

"Juliette said that the injury on the dog's nose and neck could've come from a whip," Nick said. "What if Rex bit through the limb or string and broke it? The tension in the string could've caused a whip-like injury."

"Then all we'd have to do is match the blood on this string to the dog, and we can put our suspect at the scene of the crime."

"It also means that our guy is down a weapon," Nick said. "He'll need to get a new one."

"I dunno," Hank replied. "He could be using whatever was hanging up there."

He pointed to the mantle above the fireplace. There were four pegs paired off horizontally, but nothing was on display. 

"We've no way to know if they had two bows up there," Nick said. "But I've got a bad feeling that you're right, and our guy has just brained his roommate, taken a new weapon, and is somewhere in Portland, ready to use it."

 

Hank felt like he'd been awake for two days straight, but the idea of Briggs at large in Portland with a bow gave him the push he needed. They put out an APB, and Nick made special arrangements for the Quarry's protection. 

That's how Hank got back to his desk first. 

"Hank," Wu said. "We've got two new bodies."

"Two?" he asked. 

"Yeah, both of them deer," Wu replied. "Shot twice in the chest, probably with arrows."

"What do you mean probably?"

"Well, someone removed the arrows after the fact," Wu said. "But the wound patterns match arrows. I'm trying to get them to the ME so the coroner can do a necropsy and confirm for sure."

"I'm guessing Parker isn't happy with that," Hank said. 

"No, she is not. Something about poaching not being the same as homicide."

"She's right, Wu. How sure are you that Briggs is responsible? For all we know, someone killed the deer to keep them out of their garden."

"Except these bodies were found in the woods that start a few blocks from the Quarry house. Both were killed this morning within an hour of each other with the same MO as our vic Prey."

"Except the shooter took the arrows," Hank said. "He left them in Prey."

"My guess is that he doesn't have that many arrows," Wu said. "And since he's dropping bodies in the woods instead of houses, he's got plenty of cover to take the arrows out and wipe them off."

"So Briggs attacked his roommate and went into the woods to kill deer?" Hank asked. "I don't get it."

"Neither do I," Wu said. "But we know that yesterday his bow broke right around when he shot Prey, so if he did have something planned, he couldn't continue. Not until he got another weapon."

"Speaking of... have we gotten anywhere on the owner of the bow?" Hank asked.

"I'm glad you asked. Seattle PD picked Davies up, and he issued a statement that he's been at college for the entire semester, no trips anywhere. He also said that he left his bows and arrows with his half-brother, Steven Briggs."

"Damn, that's why we couldn't connect Briggs to archery directly," Hank said. "Davies have any other family in the area?" 

"Loads. You want me to run down properties and rentals?" Wu asked.

"Yeah, and Nick and I will check out the deer bodies, just in case," Hank replied.

 

Dana Scully sat in her home office, trying to focus on the welcome packet for her new job, but every time she started a new page, her mind wandered. 

Finding an injured dog the night they moved in was one thing, but discovering a dead body the next morning? Even as a scientist, Scully felt that it was a bad omen, a sign of what life in Portland would be like. 

Her other concern was the timing of Skinner's offer. Treeview Hospital invited Scully to join them supposedly because of her pediatric work, and they included her own research lab and funding for any clinical trials she wanted in exchange for a handful of hours teaching or mentoring each week. It was the next logical step in her career, but she knew before she accepted it that the offer was incredibly generous. 

She wondered if the FBI somehow roped Treeview into pulling Scully in, so they'd move to the one place where they (or Mulder at least) could investigate America's most curious detective. 

Scully closed her eyes to concentrate. Obviously, Mulder's paranoia had rubbed off on her, but his unfortunate tendency to be right made it seem less like paranoia and more like caution.

The doorbell rang. 

She went downstairs, even though she knew Mulder had answered the door.

"Hello, I'm Trina Quarry," the visitor said. "I'm here about Rex."

"Please, come in," Mulder said. He led her to the living room. "I'm Mulder, and that over there is Scully."

"Hello Trina," Scully said.

"It's nice to meet you. I heard you're the ones who saved Rex and looked after him," Trina said. 

"He's a great dog," Mulder replied. "Would you like anything to drink?"

"No thank you. Can I ask, where is Rex?"

"He's right here," Scully replied pointing to the large dog bed hidden by furniture. 

"Look at that, I don't think I've ever seen him rest when a new person is at the door," Trina said.

"Well this big guy and I went on a run this morning, tired him right out," Mulder said. "Isn't that right, Rex?"

The Leonberger finally got to his feet. He went straight to Mulder and sat in front of him, pinning his feet.

"He likes you," Trina said. "Both of you."

"He's an easy dog to like," Scully replied.

"You should keep him," Trina said.

"Oh, no, he belongs with your family," Mulder said. "We couldn't ask you to just give him up."

"He was my brother's dog, and my husband and I have three children. Rex here is bigger than all of them put together. My sister said she could try to take him, but she lives in an apartment in San Francisco. What he really needs is a family with a house and time to spend with him," she said. "I'd never abandon him, but Rex trusts you, I can see that. Would you be willing to adopt him?"

"Of course we would," Scully blurted. 

If Mulder disapproved, he was doing a fine job hiding it.

 

Daniel Davies's father owned a cabin not far from where the two poached deer were found. Nick and Hank left just before lunch. It wasn't very accessible. They had to park where the dirt road ended and walk the rest of the way.

"How far is it from here?" Hank asked.

"'Bout a half mile," Nick replied.

As they made their way through the woods, Hank broached the subject that he'd avoided all morning.

"Nick, what are we gonna do with this guy?" 

"First we find him, then we arrest him."

"But what if this was just some guy poaching deer. Right now, he's going down for murder."

Nick shook his head. "Listen, let's say you're right, that the first shot to the thigh was a hunting accident. Briggs followed this guy and shot him inside of a house. That's not an accident, Hank, it's murder."

"But what if Prey looked like an elk or deer or whatever?" Hank asked. "Then after he was shot, turned back to his human form."

"I don't know, Hank, but with all the forensic evidence lining up, we can't let him walk on murder. And I can't think that he believed his roommate was a deer, too."

"Do you remember what I was like after I saw something change from not-human to human after death?" Hank asked. "I put three rounds from my shot gun into my closet. Nothing was there."

"Maybe you're right, but first thing's first, we need to find him and stop him from hurting anyone - or anything - else," Nick said. 

"Agreed."

They continued on in silence until they reached the cabin. There were no lights on, but there were pens set up behind the building. They were probably built for dogs, but someone had modified them crudely with what looked like spare materials. The same fence material that bordered the pens had been thrown over the top and secured with little more than bungee cords and duct tape.

There were injured deer inside.

"You check the cabin, I'll check the yard," Nick said. "And I'll see if any of the deer are, you know..."

"People?" Hank suggested.

They split up. Nick took his time. He stopped and listened for any indication that Briggs or anyone else was nearby. All he heard was the sound of heavy footsteps on grass and the occasional clink-scrap of metal on hoof from when one of the deer kicked the fence. 

Nick rounded to the other side of the cabin. Each deer had at least one leg injury and what looked like marks on their necks. It was possible Briggs wounded them to subdue them so he could drag them here with some kind of leash.

The Grimm approached the fence, and the deer moved away. 

"Listen, my name is Nick Burkhardt," he said to them. "If any one in there happens to be more than just a deer, you need to _woge_ so I can get you out of here."

He felt ridiculous.

Hank came through the back door of the cabin. 

"It's clear, he's not here," Hank said. "But he's in the process of making more arrows and God only knows what else."

Nick said, "He's got four deer here, all injured. None of this makes any sense. We've got two deer bodies that say he's killing them but leaving their bodies. We've got one man who might fall under that same category, but what're these four doing here? And how did he get them all so fast? Is it even possible to catch four deer in one day?"

"He's only killed adult deer," Hank said. "These are all pretty young. That one is a fawn."

"So he's been collecting young deer," Nick said. "How long do you think this pen took?"

"Dunno, but we got a big problem," Hank said. "He's not here. I don't think this is the kinda guy who goes out on a milk run, which means he's either killing something or dragging it back here."

Nick pulled out his phone. "I'm calling Monroe. We need someone who can track him."

"What about them?" Hank asked, pointing to the hapless deer. 

"If we call a team out here, he'll see them from a mile away and we'll scare him off."

"I say we call Wu, too," Hank said. "You and Monroe track him and try to drive him back this way if you can. Oh, and see if they can bring us some sandwiches."

 

Monroe had no problem identifying Briggs' scent. Tracking became difficult because he'd traversed a lot of area that morning, but the Blutbad isolated the most recent pathway and followed it.

"This guy smells unhinged," Monroe said. 

"Is that some kind of fancy cologne?" Nick asked sarcastically.

"I wish. His scent reeks of fear and agitation."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, you know, for one thing, draw your gun," Monroe replied. "Just in case."

"Wait," Nick said, stopping Monroe. "Listen... can you hear that?"

Leaves rustled, and a young boy whined, then screamed. 

"Now that I heard," Monroe said.

They ran for it, jumping over brush and rocks, following the whimpers that were slowly fading. 

Nick caught a glimpse of Briggs as they closed in. He wasn't injured, but his expression was disfigured with mania, cruelty, and just a little bit of triumph.

"You thought you could hide from me?" Briggs said. "You thought wrong. I'm going to hunt down every last one of you and slaughter you!"

Briggs had trapped a young fawn in some kind of snare and wrapped a leash around its neck. Like the others, its front leg was injured, likely from the snare capturing it.

Somehow, Nick could tell by looking at the fawn that it wasn't a deer at all. 

"Portland PD!" Nick yelled, pointing his gun and making himself visible. "Steven Briggs! You are under arrest! Put your hands in the air and back away from the net."

"You don't understand," Briggs said. "This isn't a deer. This is a man that can transform into a monster. It just looks like a deer."

"I said, step back!" Nick yelled. 

"I know it sounds crazy," Briggs said. "I'm not crazy. I've seen it. I tracked a deer and found a man, and I thought I'd made a mistake. But I saw him when he pulled the arrow out of his leg. He transformed right in front of me, roaring as he pulled that arrow right through his thigh, like it was nothing. That was his mistake because he wasn't a man or an animal then, but something in between. I saw it. And after I hit him twice in the chest, you know what happened? He became a man again. I can prove it to you, Portland PD Detective! You're my witness! I can prove it to you because these monsters can't hide in death!"

In one fluid motion, Briggs took the hunting knife from his belt and went for the fawn's throat.

BANG! BANG!

Nick hit him once in the arm and once in the upper chest. Briggs crumpled to the ground, and Nick kicked away his knife and cuffed his good arm to his bad arm, keeping them in front of the body.

Monroe yanked the snare apart, freeing the fawn. 

"Uh, Nick," he said. "Is this... you know? And if so, what do I do?"

"Yes," Nick said. "Take this poor fawn to one of the wild life rescue centers. He's going to need help. I'll text you the address of the nearest one."

"Right," Monroe replied, cottoning onto Nick's tone. As he picked up the baby deer, he spoke to it, saying "Listen, buddy, I know you've had some bad experiences today, but don't kick me in the face."

"Hank, we need a medical pickup. Our suspect has two gunshot wounds. I don't think I should move him," Nick said into his phone. "Right, good, thanks partner."

"You know," Briggs said from the ground. "You know that fawn isn't a deer! You're one of them, aren't you?"

"What do you think they are, exactly?"

"Skinwalkers," he said. "Or were-deer. Like werewolves but deer. They're people and animals at the same time, and we both know that's just not right. Life makes us one or the other, not both. Anything that tries to have two bodies is aberrant, evil, defying nature! You need to kill them all! They all need to die!"

Briggs snarled his words, but they lost their venom as he became weaker. 

"You should be quiet, Mr. Briggs," Nick said. "The EMTs are on their way. Also, Steven Briggs, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..."

 

Hank and Nick waited in the Captain's office, wary of how their report would be received.

"Good, you're here," Renard said as he came in. "So, according to your report, Briggs had been capturing live fawns and young deer and penning them at a cabin?"

"That's right, sir," Nick said. "According to his roommate, Jason Anderson, Briggs wanted to use them as bait."

"He must've been fishing for something pretty big," Renard said. "Any idea what it was?"

"Lycanthropes," Hank replied. "Briggs believed that Portland had a large werewolf population. He wanted to prove their existence by baiting a trap and capturing one."

"You're serious?" Renard asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," Nick said. "Right now, we're looking for any evidence that our vic was at the cabin. Our working theory is that Prey discovered the pen and tried to free the deer, but - "

"Steven Briggs killed him for his trouble?" Renard suggested.

"Pretty much, yes," Hank said. 

"That makes sense, except for the fact that this man is ranting about were-deer not werewolves. I just got an earful about how you shot him to save a fawn, Nick. He says you're protecting the were-deer because you're one of them," Renard said. He sat down and said, "Tell me what the Hell is going on."

Nick said, "Short version? That wasn't a fawn. That was a boy named Bowdyn Quarry, age eight, nephew to our victim, Ronan Sawyer Prey. The hospital checked him out - he's fine - and CSI documented his injuries and collected forensics. It shows that he was the one in that net, not a fawn."

"What kind of forensics?" Renard asked.

Nick replied, "I don't have the final report yet, but they've concluded that Bowdyn's injuries were sustained by being trapped in a snare and suspended mid-air in a net for about an hour."

"Bruises and scrapes on his neck match the collar that Briggs was using on the deer," Hank added. "We've got hair, fibers, and blood from Briggs on the kid. Forensically, this is a slam-dunk, Captain."

"So our man Briggs is delusional?" Renard asked. 

"Not really," Hank said. "The Preys and the Quarrys are Carria-chalma and Faidh-chalma and can _woge_ or whatever into something that looks like a deer."

"Actually, we were hoping you might have a way to deal with that," Nick said. "Maybe a Royal warning reminding them that they shouldn't run around Portland like deer for their own safety."

"What about the Wesen Council?" Renard asked.

"I don't want to involve them," Nick replied. "Mostly because they sent a bounty hunter after me a few weeks ago, and I don't think the Quarrys need anymore punishment."

Hank said, "Especially because the only two we know have done it are an eight-year-old and a man who died because of it."

"I can issue an... unofficial warning," Renard said. "They might not listen, and if that's the case and they become a problem again - "

"Then we'll have Rosalee call the council," Nick completed. 

"All right, I just have one question," Renard said. "Is the werewolf thing real?"

"Technically, yes," Nick said. "It had been a life-long dream of his to prove werewolves exist."

"We might've taken a few liberties when writing up our report," Hank said. "Drawing a few conclusions that weren't spelled out but were clear to us."

"And did you draw similar conclusions in the case of Ronan Sawyer Prey?" Renard asked.

"The physical evidence tells us his story," Hank replied.

"Just to be safe, let's be sure to find _something_ of Prey's at that cabin. Anything that suggests he was there before Briggs killed him," Renard said. 

"Already taken care of," Nick replied.

"You realize that this guy could use the insanity plea?" Renard asked. "He'll probably end up in a treatment facility instead of a prison."

"If the DA asked either of us, we'd both agree," Hank said. "At one point, this guy honestly thought he was killing a deer." 

Nick added, "He saw someone _woge_ , probably for the first time, and he lost it. We can't let this guy run around Portland trying to kill all the were-deer and whatever else he thinks he's found, but this isn't a cut-and-dry murder. He saw something he couldn't explain, something he thought was a monster, and he shot to kill."

"Trouble is, this guy followed Prey to his home, or a house in any case, and killed him there," Hank said. "While we were waiting for the EMTs, he kept on saying how he was gonna kill them all. Maybe it's not simple case of murder, but it was no hunting accident, either."

"I'll ask the DA to push for a plea deal with treatment at a mental health facility," Renard said. "And I'll put in a word with the Quarry family."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Term Reference and Pronunciation Guide**  
>  The following universe-specific terms were referenced in this chapter. A single asterisk (*) indicates that the term has been augmented/modified from canon. A double asterisk (**) indicates terms original to Addendum GW.
> 
> ** **carria-chalma** (pronounced CAW-ria hanah-mah, roughly translates from Irish/Scots Gaelic as 'valiant stag' or 'valiant hart') - term used for male members of the elk-like _schierwesen_ species
> 
> ** **fiadh-chalma** (pronounced FEE-a hanah-mah, roughly translates from Irish/Scots Gaelic as 'valiant deer') - term used for female members of the elk-like _schierwesen_ species
> 
>  **kehrseite** (pronounced KER-zytuh, translates from German as 'the flip side' or 'the other side') - the term _wesen_ use to describe non- _wesen_ individuals
> 
>  **kehrseite-genträger** [alternatively spelled: kehrseite-gentrager] (pronounced KER-zytuh-geen-tray-ger, translates from German as 'gene carrier') - a child of a _wesen/kehrseite_ couple who is not _wesen_ but has recessive _wesen_ genes
> 
> ** **schierwesen** (pronounced share-VES-sin, translates from German as 'pure being' or 'pure nature') - the term used for certain _wesen_ species that possess the potential to master a secondary _woge_ into full animal form (alternatively called _zweifachwesen_ )
> 
>  **wesen** (pronounced VES-sin) - the collective term for the various types or species of parahuman beings that can be seen by Grimms.
> 
>  **woge** (pronounced VOL-guh, translated from German as 'wave' or 'surge') - the term used to describe the transformation between human appearance and the other being or nature of any _wesen_ (e.g. when Monroe _woges_ , his Blutbad nature appears, and he has wolf-like features)
> 
> ** **zweifachwesen** (pronounced swhy-fah-VES-sin, translates from German as 'dual nature' or 'twofold being') - the term used for certain _wesen_ species that possess the potential to master a secondary _woge_ into full animal form (alternatively called _schierwesen_ )


	3. Harbinger sec. Apophenia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully treats a young girl with strange neurological symptoms. The case becomes complicated when people begin to believe that the girl can see the future and her parents threaten to remove her from the hospital. Scully turns to Mulder to help convince the girl's parents that she can be treated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For pronunciation guide to names and translations for expressions in other languages, see the end-of-chapter notes.

Gregorio Teixeira woke with a start. He sat up, confused and sleepy, and checked the clock. It was a little after five in the morning.

"Goito! Goito!" his wife screamed from down the hall.

He ran out of their bedroom and into his daughter's room, following his wife's voice. 

"What is it, Nali?" he asked. "Are you hurt?"

"It's Saura," she replied. "Listen."

He turned his attention to their daughter Saura. She was fast asleep.

"Was she the one yelling?" he asked. "Is it the night terrors again?"

"Listen," his wife repeated. "Listen to her, Gregorio."

His wife only used his full name when she was very serious or terrified, so he listened. Together, they watched over Saura for several minutes, but she didn't move or speak.

"Manali," he said to his wife, "she is sleeping, let her rest."

Suddenly, Saura mumbled, "Maji...Papi." 

His daughter called them Maji and Papi when she was a very young child, but from the age of nine, she only called them that when she was very, very ill. 

Saura continued to talk in her sleep, slowly mumbling syllables. "Papi... Hurts, pain... don't... don't ignore. You ignore, too late... _não por favor... criar malvas..._ "

Manali tugged at his arm, so he followed her out of the room and downstairs into the kitchen. She started to make breakfast.

"Nali," he began.

She interrupted, "I told you, Goito, she has The Sight." 

"I told you," she said. "She has The Sight."

"She is ill, Nali. She needs the hospital."

"Her affliction cannot be treated by doctors with their needles or cut out with their knives."

"You do not know... you cannot know that!" he said. "She speaks in her sleep because she is sick. What she spoke just now? It is nonsense. It means nothing."

"Her birth mother had the gift. And what happened? It was wasted because she was locked up in hospitals. Her family said the same things. They said she was ill and needed doctors, so they took her, and those doctors did nothing. They could do nothing, and they never let her leave!"

"The Sight is a story, Nali," he said. "Our daughter is not a story."

"Your father would be ashamed of the words you just said," she replied. "She gave you a warning, Goito. That is a gift, a gift from our daughter. Please, do not ignore it."

"What is this that you think she said?" he asked.

"She warned you about your pain. Do not to ignore it," she insisted. "Your shoulder, it hurts."

"Because of my injury, Nali."

"You are the one that needs the doctor. It is you that is sick, Goito. She said you will die if you ignore it. You must go now, while they can still help you."

Goito took a few minutes to think about his choices. Saura had been behaving strangely for the past few days, and she wasn't getting better. If the only way to get his wife to agree was to go himself, then that was what he would do.

"Fine, I will go to the hospital, but only if Saura goes as well," he said. "We go tonight, after work."

Manali bit her lip, clearly ready to argue, but after a few minutes of the silent and somewhat furious scrambling of eggs, she nodded her head. 

She said, "Very well. But I will not let them lock her up, searching forever for something that their medicine can cure. I will not leave my daughter in chains for The Sight, Goito."

 

 **The next morning...** Dana Scully was eating her breakfast when the doorbell rang. Rex started barking.

"You expecting someone?" Mulder asked.

"Before seven a.m.? No," she replied.

He left the table to answer the door. He must've told Rex to be quiet, because the dog stopped barking. A few minutes later he returned with a certified mail envelop. 

"It's from Skinner," he said as he opened it and pulled out several thick stacks of paper.

"Did you ask him to send that?" she asked.

"No, but everything's here. Forms, paperwork, references, history... basically gift wrapped," he said as he returned to his seat. "Did you?"

"No," she replied. "Not that I haven't thought about it, but we haven't talked about it. I had the impression that you didn't want to."

"What makes you say that?"

"You didn't seem concerned about how moving to Portland would affect our status."

"Because I wasn't concerned. I'm not concerned. We moved for your new job. I assumed we'd figure it out."

"You think we should file in Oregon?" 

"Why wouldn't we?"

She smiled. 

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing, I was just thinking about Jordi."

"I'll pickup the state regulations and forms, and we can talk more tonight," he said.

"Have you thought about Skinner's offer any more?"

"No, not really, but I did start collecting interesting articles from local newspapers."

"Do I even want to know?" 

"Scully, three weeks ago, there was a fire connected to a serial arson case. It came up because this new fire fit a pattern. The pattern being that the fire, for all intents and purposes, seemed to move as a sentient being, in complete contradiction to the laws of physics.."

"What're you thinking, Mulder? Pyrokinesis? The burning man?"

"I don't know what I'm thinking," he replied. "You know the body you found last week? They caught the guy responsible, Steven Briggs, and he's been ranting about Portland's infestation of - and, I'm not making this up - were-deer. Were-deer. As in people who can turn into deer."

"Mulder, I am familiar with the were-animal concept." 

"Yeah, but... there's the were-fox, similar to the Kitsune in Japanese legend, the were-jaguar of the Olmec tradition, or the overwhelmingly popular entity of therianthropy, the werewolf. Yet this guy is scared of were-deer. That has to be the worst animal to transform into."

Scully shrugged. "Deer can be incredibly powerful animals. If I had to choose, I'd rather be a were-deer than an... I don't know, a were-pigeon."

"If you saw a man transform into a deer, or a deer transform into a man, would you shoot to kill?"

"If I saw either, I'd want my blood checked for drugs and my head checked for injury," she replied.

"What about this," he said as he held up the paper. "Last night, a teenager was murdered when an unknown assailant cut off his left foot."

"So I take it you're considering Skinner's offer."

"If I do take it - and I'm not saying that I will - but if I do, it'll be as a favor to Skinner. But today I've got a meeting with that professor."

"Uhh, Chuck," Scully said. "He - "

"She," Mulder interrupted. "I made that mistake, too."

"She's the professor focused on Shamanism and divination?"

"Apparently the museum is focusing on world religions," he replied. "You want me to bring you lunch?" 

"You don't have to do that - "

He interrupted, "I don't have to, but it's one less thing to worry about on your first day."

 

Scully arrived at Treeview Hospital at seven o'clock. She went to human resources to sign paperwork and received her new access card. She met with her new boss, Doctor Sadie Locke, who gave her a ten-cent tour of the hospital, and they ended at her new office, sparsely furnished but quite lovely. 

"Glad to have you aboard, Doctor Scully," Locke said. "I know you've opted for a four-day week, but if you need to change that for whatever reason, just let me know."

"Thank you," Scully replied. "I'm looking forward to getting started."

"That's good, because we have two cases that came in this morning. I've transferred the patient charts to your EWF... uh, that's what we call the electronic center for patient charts. Electronic Workspace Folder, I think that's the full name. Essentially, all your patient e-charts are there so you can access them from your computer and tablet. Anyway, the two patients I mentioned... Cleo Blue, age seventeen, redirected here from urgent care about an hour ago, and Saura Teixeira, age fourteen. She was admitted last night and seen by Doctor Nicholas Hembree, our pediatrics fellow."

"Is he working now?" Scully asked.

"No, he's on nights. He asked to be updated on this patient. His research is in pediatric sleep medicine, neurology. You'll be her primary, but I'd appreciate you keeping Hembree in the loop. He's a great doctor, but he needs more experience with psych cases. He's also on night shift for the next few weeks, so he can monitor her overnight if you like."

"I'm sure he'll be pleasant to work with," Scully said. 

"Pleasant might be a strong word, Doctor Scully. Forgive me, but I've got to go."

"Thank you, Doctor Locke."

Locke left, and Scully reviewed the two patients in question. She hadn't expected to treat anyone on her first day. Her last three positions began with at least two days of paperwork and other transitioning, so this was a nice change of pace. 

Cleo Blue had gone into urgent care early this morning instead of driving to school. The chart listed her complaint as insomnia, but whoever filled out paperwork didn't bother to identify type. Scully wondered if they referred her to the hospital because they thought she was just playing hooky and assumed she'd bail at a transfer. Her medical records were unremarkable until the last year, when she started seeing her doctor for various sleep-related complaints with increasing frequency. She'd been six times in as many months. 

She turned to the files for Saura Teixeira. The ER forms said she came in for low-grade fever and odd behavior. The file indicated that a series of tests were performed in the ER, but none of the results were attached. The admitting physician hadn't included any notes, either, which made her wonder if the chart simply hadn't been updated yet. 

Scully decided to begin with Cleo, hoping Saura's records would be complete by the time she was done.

She introduced herself to the nurses on the floor and checked in with them about Chloe Blue. They reported that she was a rude, agitated, and waiting in her room.

With that in mind, Scully stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

"Chloe Blue?" 

"Yeah, I've been waiting for like an hour."

"I apologize for the wait, I'm Doctor Scully."

"Hi," Chloe said.

"I've looked over your records. You're having trouble sleeping."

"Yeah."

"Is that why you went to urgent care today?"

"I have an appointment with a neurologist, but my doctor made me wait six months before he'd give me a referral, and the earliest appointment they could give me is three months from now. And my doctor won't do anything until the neurologist sees me... I kinda feel like I'm going crazy or about to go crazy."

"How much sleep do you get a night?" Scully asked. 

"I dunno, four hours, I guess," Chloe replied. "And I've done all the sleep hygiene and meditation and everything my doctor told me to. I've been doing it for the past eight months, and I still can't sleep."

"Back when you first started noticing problems, did you have trouble falling asleep?"

"No! No, it's... I get to sleep fine, but then I wake up and can't go back to sleep. It's my dreams, I think."

"They wake you up?" Scully asked.

"No. Or, I don't know. I can't remember. But I wake up, and it's... sometimes it's like my heart is racing. Other times it feels like I need to go somewhere or do something, but I can't remember what. And sometimes I'm just... terrified. I never remember why, but I can't get back to sleep."

"After you wake up like, do you feel confused, disoriented, maybe even scared to go back to sleep?" Scully asked. 

"When it started, it was more like I felt like there was something I gotta do, but can't remember it. I can't go back to sleep because, what if it's important? But recently... last night, I slept from ten to two, and I woke up soaking wet from sweat and scared out of my mind. I spent the rest of the night curled up in the corner of my bed because I couldn't remember what scared me, which made it so much worse. What if whatever-it-was was still nearby? I couldn't go back to sleep. This is the third time this week that's happened. I can't... I can't..."

When she didn't continue, Scully spoke up. "It sounds like you have sleep-maintenance insomnia secondary to a dreaming disorder. Intense, vivid dreams or nightmares evoke strong emotional reactions, sometimes strong enough to wake you up. It's not uncommon in isolated incidents, but your case seems to be chronic, and it seems like your symptoms have snowballed. If you can give me the neurologist's name, I'm going to try to move your appointment up because you may be experiencing something called nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy, or NFLE, and it's important that we rule it out, even though I think it's unlikely. In the meantime, I think we should start treatment for your sleep deprivation and insomnia. I'll need you to bare with me, Chloe, because I have a lot more questions for you."

 

Mulder felt that today would be a good day.

His meeting wasn't for a few hours, so he went to the Diner, a local place known for being a cop haunt. He took a seat at the bar counter and ordered a coffee, so he could people watch.

Any attempt to strike up a conversation ultimately failed, even though officers and detectives came and went regularly, grabbing doggy bags or to-go cups. He might have better luck if he came during a shift-change. 

He was ready to throw in the towel when he noticed that a woman accidentally left her coat a few seats down from him. He picked it up and followed after her, and right as he caught up, the woman stopped short and flinched, staring out the door window.

"Excuse me? Miss? Is this yours?"

"Uh, what?" she asked, distracted. 

"I think you left your coat," Mulder said as he handed it off to her. "This is yours, isn't it?"

"Oh... yes it is, thank you."

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You look upset."

"It's nothing. I just don't like ravens," she replied, no longer distracted.

He turned his head and saw the bird perched outside on a trash bin.

"Edgar Allen Poe kinda ruined them for me, too." 

"I know there's no reason to be worried, but the last time I saw that thing I was attacked by a patient. So now I'm wondering, what will happen this time?" she said.

"Probably nothing. I mean, what're the odds of it happening again?" 

"Considering I'm a coroner, it should've been impossible the first time," she replied. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"I'm Fox Mulder."

"I'm Doctor Parker Harper, but people call me Harper."

"If it makes you feel any better, Harper, the modern conception of the raven as an ill omen of death is a watered down variation on its complex and ancient symbolism of magic, death, mysticism, and communication with deities and the beyond. Many Native American tribes saw the raven as a trickster, neither friend or foe. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that seeing a raven was a sign of good luck."

"Count the Greeks and Romans wrong then," she replied. "Being attacked at work is not good luck."

"It's not, but surviving an attack is," he said. "Celtic lore maintained that the goddess Morrigan took the form of a raven when she acted as a protector. In that case, the raven isn't an omen at all, it's somebody looking out for you, which I think is a good thing, what with the whole zombie-patient thing."

She laughed and replied, "Thanks for that. I'll see you around, Mr. Mulder."

"Nice meeting you, Harper."

She left, and he checked his watch. It was ten minutes to eight. Time to get to the museum.

 

Scully arranged for a follow-up appointment by the end of the week to see how Chloe was sleeping. She'd have the results of the blood work by then, though from her physical exam and the conversation they had, she believed the primary cause was sleep deprivation.

"Nurse Rose?" Scully said as she returned to the nurse's station. "Do we have any more information about my other patient, Saura Teixeira?"

"I prefer Nurse Dallon," he replied. "Psych updated her chart. They bounced her because the tests the ER ran were promised for this morning but never attached."

"How did that happen without paperwork?" Scully asked.

"The paperwork's there, but, given the unique circumstances, it's a little short." 

"Unique circumstances?"

"Last night, her mom brought her father into the ER, insisting that he was sick and going to die soon. Didn't say of what, but that it'd be something like an burst aneurysm or a heart attack," Dallon said. "Said her daughter prophesized it."

"As in, predicted it?"

"That's what she said, and a few minutes later, she broke out into a cold sweat and complained of nausea. One of the nurses on the floor recognized her symptoms and got her a bed."

"So the father was okay, but the mother was having a heart attacked?" Scully asked.

"She was at the start of one, yeah. She got admitted and taken straight up to the cath lab. They think they caught it in time," Dallon explained. 

"What about Saura?" Scully asked.

"ER ran a full battery of tests, eventually sent her to psych for psychosis."

"So far all her chart says is that her father brought her in because of a persistent low-grade fever and unusual behavior. She presented with disorientation and continuous speech," Scully said, reading from the chart. "But there's no patient history here and no results for any of the lab tests the ER must've run. I don't even see a GCS or CAM score here. The only thing I see is a high-dose vitamin shot of B12, then a diagnosis of idiopathic psychosis was made a few hours based on a sudden onset of agitation and aggression. It doesn't make any sense."

Dallon said, "It's possible that her results were attached to the wrong chart or someone took her history and labs and forgot to put them in the EWF. I can try and track them down, but it'll take time."

"Do whatever you have to do," Scully replied. "Can you page the admitting doctor and ask him to come in as soon as possible? I'd hate to have to re-run every test."

Dallon nodded, yes, and left.

Scully cleared her thoughts before knocking on Saura's door. When there was no reply, she opened it.

Saura was lying back in bed. Her father sat next to her, clearly exhausted and scared. 

"Hello, I'm Doctor Scully." 

"I'm Goito," the father said as he stood up and extended his hand. "Goito Teixeira. This is my daughter, Saura Teixeira."

"It's nice to meet you both. Mr. Teixeira. Since your daughter is fourteen, it might be easier for me to talk to Saura alone, if that's all right," Scully said.

"Uh, yes, but as I explained to the ER doctor, she's not normally like this," he said before he left.

"Saura, I'm Doctor Scully," she said.

"Hi."

"How're you feeling?" 

"My head hurts. It... hurts a lot."

Scully noticed that she had bruises starting to show on her forearm and forehead.

"Do you remember how you got those bruises?"

"I was going to get breakfast and crashed into the stair banister," she said. "My feet got tangled up and I drifted to the side, and there was no avoiding it. Was right there, knew I was going to hit it, but there was no where else."

Scully made note of ataxia as a symptom. 

"I know the ER already ran some tests, but - "

"It's too loud," Saura interrupted, suddenly becoming agitated. 

"I'm sorry?"

"It's too loud! The water!" she said, covering her ears. "Torrents and torrents, down, down... and rising... it's too loud. Please, make it stop! Make it stop!"

Scully yelled out the door, "I need help in here!"

Nurse Dallon ran inside while Nurse Forest kept Goito in the hall.

"The thunder, it's too loud! The water won't stop, the rain..." Saura said, thrashing. "It's horrible, all the metal and bone and blood. The screaming, the pain, so many people. It's all bone and metal and blood and screams. Metal and screams and bone and tears."

"Three milligrams of diazepam," Scully said to Dallon.

Dallon went out to the drug cart and returned to administer the medication. Saura continued to mutter incoherently until the drug took full affect.

"Thank you," Scully said. "Nurse Forest, please bring Mr. Teixeira back in, we need to talk."

 

Mulder walked through the Portland Museum and followed signs to the offices, finally knocking on the door labeled "Professor Charlotte Jarry."

It opened immediately. 

"Fox Mulder?"

"Yes, but, it's Mulder if you don't mind," he replied. 

"I'm Chuck Jarry, but most people call me CJ. Come in."

The office was decorated with images from world mythology. Serpents and wolves were the most common symbols in the room, followed by owls, spiders, and hybrid monsters.

"The world's symbolism and mythology of fear," he commented. "Not a common decor theme."

"Interesting conclusion," CJ replied. "The wolf is seen as an antagonist - sometimes elevated to a villainous character - in many European cultures, but to many cultures of the indigenous peoples of America, the wolf represents endurance, leadership, and family values."

"But none of your wolves are from Native American tradition," Mulder said. "I see Fenrier, Hati, and Skoll, all wolves from Norse mythology associated with the end of the world. I also see the historical man-eating wolf called The Beast of Gevaudan, and various manifestations of the Big Bag Wolf. All from Europe."

"I better be careful, the next thing you'll do is hone in on my lack of lycanthropy," she said. "I see your reputation doesn't do you much justice."

"How's that?"

"I heard you were knowledgeable on mythology and folklore, but I've had plenty of learned scholars, professors, and self-taught enthusiasts in here, and not one of them has been able to identify three Nordic wolves by name along with representations of fairy tale motifs and images of a historical beast."

"Mythology informed a lot of my work, so I made a habit of exposing myself to it whenever possible," he replied. 

"That's one reason I'd like to hire you. A lot of people ask, 'Why bother with mythology? How does it apply to real life?' And we've had a few different people address it. Creative types, mostly, but also people who work in psychological or talk therapy fields. We haven't had anyone discuss it from an investigative standpoint."

"I'm not sure that'd appeal to most audiences," he said. "Especially because a lot of my investigative work relates directly to serial offenders who have internalized mythic symbols to the point of where even their crimes bare traces of them. It's not a pretty subject."

"I understand, but what you just said, about the nature of mythology informing some offenders, is interesting in itself. Anyway, we're a bit off topic."

"From what I understand, you're putting together several exhibits related to divination."

CJ nodded and said, "Obviously, that's a general theme, we're hoping to cover ancient practices to modern superstitions. Two of our professors are on archeological digs, so what we really need is someone who can work quickly contextualizing complex historical and mythological facts. And we definitely need someone who can get information. I used to say 'research,' but kids these days think that's Wikipedia."

"My previous work with museums has been in modern incarnations of unexplainable phenomenon," Mulder said. "I don't think this is much different, but it would be new territory for me."

Someone came into the room and said, "CJ, I need to - oh, I didn't know you had someone in here."

"Mulder, this is Professor Vera Gates," CJ said. "Vera, Mulder. He's the former FBI Agent I was telling you about."

"Nice to meet you," Vera said, offering her hand. 

"You as well," Mulder replied, shaking. "You're a professor of...?"

"Archeology," she replied. "CJ said you investigated abnormal crimes for the FBI."

"That's a way to put it," he replied. "The X-Files investigated cases that had elements of unnatural, alien, or paranormal phenomenon."

"Huh, maybe I could get your opinion on something," Vera said. "Sorry, CJ, for barging in. I'll come back later."

 

About an hour after talking with Mr. Teixeira, a young doctor knocked on Scully's open office door.

"Doctor Scully?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I'm Doctor Nicholas Hembree," he said. "I'm the pediatrics fellow. Dunno if Doctor Locke told you. One of the nurses on the floor paged me to come in, said our psych patient was bounced back."

"Please come in," Scully said.

"Let me guess, psych won't take her because we forgot to rule out something ridiculously rare and unlikely," he said as he sat down. "Which means our psych patient will be denied care until they feel like we've done enough work."

"First of all, Doctor Hembree, she is not a psych patient," Scully said. "Until we know otherwise, she's my patient, and psych was right to bounce her. None of her labs are in her file, and there's no radiology report from the head CT. I had to take her medical history because that wasn't attached either."

Hembree fiddled with his tablet for a few minutes.

"I dunno what happened," he said. "I ran a full set of neuro tests. She was negative for everything except the Romberg, but the head CT came back clean. Blood work showed a B vitamin deficiency, so I ordered a shot of B12. Not long after, she became agitated and aggressive, clearly hallucinating. The only logical diagnosis was psychosis, especially with her history of ADHD."

"Doctor Locke told me that your interest lies in sleep medicine, neurology," Scully said.

"That's right. The only thing even close to a neurological symptom was her constant talking, but she's a teenaged girl, most of them constantly talk."

"Her father says that she's an introvert who rarely speaks to people she doesn't know," Scully replied.

"She's a teenager. Teenagers keep things from their parents. When she was first brought into the ER, it was pretty clear that she was a chatty Cathy with dehydration. Her neuro exams were all clear."

"Maybe when you performed them last night," she replied. "But today, she presents with ataxia, headache, and auditory hallucinations that triggered some kind of hyperacusis. Doctor Locke asked me to keep you in the loop, but I'll only do that if you accept the fact that, until I say otherwise, Saura is a pediatric neurology patient."

"No problem, Doctor S."

"It's Scully, Hembree."

 

Mulder left his impromptu meeting feeling energized. It wasn't the same as investigating an X-File, but it was just part-time work to keep him moving forward. At the very least, he'd be able to solidify a few local contacts. 

Meeting with Professor Gates had been far more interesting than his initial meeting with CJ. Her research had led her to an incredible MRI of an ancient mummy, which had since disappeared. She burned him a copy on a memory stick, and he couldn't wait to show Scully.

He picked up lunch and headed to the hospital. He ducked inside just as the rain began. It quickly built up into a full-blown thunderstorm. 

He wandered around looking for Scully's office, and eventually an orderly pointed him in the right direction.

"Nice digs," he commented. "Could use some color, doc."

"Please tell me that's hamburgers," she said. 

"Why hello to you too," he said. 

"Thank you for bringing lunch."

They started lunch, and it felt oddly familiar, eating take-out together in the office.

"I think we should've moved to Portland a long time ago," he said.

"Did you find a sasquatch?" she asked.

"Even better," he said. "How about you? Have you had any time to see patients? Or has it been all paperwork?"

"Actually, I have gotten to see some today," she replied. "One of them is in very serious condition, but..."

"What is it?"

"Everyone here is talking about her, but not because of her health. People've been saying that she predicts the future," Scully said.

"Foresight?" he asked. "What has she predicted?"

"According to her father, she kept saying something about not ignoring the warning signs or the pain, so her mother brought them both to the ER, worried he was going to die."

"I'm guessing he didn't," Mulder said.

"No, but the mother had a heart attack," she said. "They caught it in the earliest stages, and she's gonna be fine. At first, it seemed like an old ER legend, but about an hour ago, she had another episode and the nurse assisting me is now telling everyone that she predicted the freak rainstorm."

"Does your patient think she's predicting the future?" Mulder asked.

"I have no idea," she replied. "She hasn't been in a state to talk with me."

He could tell by the way she spoke that Scully was deeply upset. 

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," he said.

"She's at the age for... it's around the time when certain illnesses come to light. It's hard enough to diagnose neurological or mental illnesses in teenagers, but when people make a spectacle of it..."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," he repeated. "If you want, I could point out that she's had two hits in one day. Pretty big ones, too. Did she say anything else?"

"Mulder, she's not psychic. One of her symptoms is logorrhea, or continuous speech," Scully said. "Even sedated, she's still talking, but no one will bother remembering the things she said that don't 'predict' anything."

"You mean misses. Predictions that don't come to pass."

"Most of what she's saying is unintelligible, and these so-called 'predictions' are just people twisting her words, which by themselves so vague as to be meaningless, which means they could mean anything. The last thing she kept repeating was something about blood, metal, and bone."

"You don't think it's even a little bit possible?" he asked.

Scully replied, "I think it's desperation."

"You don't think it's possible?"

"No," Scully said. "She said something about bad health when she herself had taken ill, and a lot of people can tell when it's going to rain from the change in barometric pressure. She's not seeing the future, Mulder. She's just sick."

"Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. One of the reasons people discounted the X-Files is that illnesses can manifest as delusions of psychic or clairvoyant abilities."

"I dare say you've opened an X-File for less," she said playfully.

"Give me some credit, Scully. I did have criteria for these kinds of things."

"If you had them, they weren't in any file I read."

"For one, this patient you describe isn't claiming anything herself. Sounds to me like classic human apophonia. We see patterns where we want - or arguably, need - to see them."

"You should try convincing her father of that," she said.

"I'd be happy to try."

"The only way I could do that is if I broke doctor-patient confidentially and told you her father's name and her name, for that matter," she replied.

"Or, you could refer the father to an expert in paranormal and psychic events," he suggested. "Give him my name. Maybe I could put his mind at ease."

"You'd do that?" she asked. "How do you know this girl can't predict the future?"

"You know, we've had this conversation before, Scully. Growth of brain tumors has been linked with reported occurrences of psychic abilities. So maybe she can see the future, and maybe the reason that she can see the future is a brain tumor that's killing her, like Robert Patrick Modell or Linda Bowman. Or maybe she's very sick and her parents are trying to cope anyway that they can. Either way, I know she needs your help, and I can make him feel better about how lucky she is to have you."

"Mulder..."

"How many doctors have saved people from exposure to alien viruses or alien biology? You saved me after I was dead and buried," he said. "And you never gave up on that little boy Christian."

"If you do talk to anyone, Mulder - "

"Leave out the alien and dead stuff?" he offered. "I usually do."

She changed the subject and asked, "You didn't tell me, how did your meeting go?"

"I think I'll be working with the museum," he said. "I met another professor there, Vera Gates, and she showed me an MRI of an ancient Egyptian mummy. Scully, it was incredible - "

Her pager started going off.

"Damn," she muttered as she got to her feet.

"Everything okay?"

"The thunderstorm caused a huge traffic accident, they're paging me because the ER is about to get slammed," she said. "I'm sorry, but we're going to have to cut our lunch short."

"Another hit," he said.

"What?" Scully asked.

"Your patient. You said the last thing she talked about was blood, bone, and metal, and then there's a big car accident? I think that counts as another hit, Scully. She's done it again."

She gave him a look that he read as 'I-seriously-hope-you-are-kidding-me.' Then she smiled and said, "Thank you for lunch." 

She leaned in to give him a quick goodbye kiss, but he pulled her closer, deeper - 

Then Nurse Forest burst in. 

"Oh, I - sorry," Forest said. 

"Mulder, this is Corey Forest, one of the nurses I'm working with. Nurse Forest, this is my partner Mulder," Scully said.

"Nice to meet you," Forest said. "Doctor Scully, it's an emergency."

"I'll see you tonight," Mulder said before stepping out the door. 

He took a moment to watch Forest and Scully hurry away to something exciting. They'd been here a week, and so far they had gotten a dog, found a dead body, acquired the scans of an ancient mutant Egyptian mummy, and were casually chatting about a teenager that could predict the future.

Yes, they should've really moved to Portland sooner.

 

Scully spent the rest of her day in the ER treating injuries from the multi-car accident. She couldn't do much for Saura until her tests were completed, and with all the emergent accident victims, the lab quickly became backlogged, which meant she wouldn't have Saura's results until much later that night or tomorrow morning.

She retired to her office by five and checked through her inbox. The ER had finally located Saura's results from the night before. The radiologist hadn't reviewed her head MRI, yet, but as of last night, her head CT was clear. 

Her EEG from today had abnormal readings but not indicative of any disorder in particular. She looked through the head MRI, but nothing obvious appeared. Unless the radiologists saw something she didn't, Saura's brain was physically fine. Scully wouldn't find any answers tonight.

A knock made her look up. Goito stood in the doorway. 

"Please come in," she said. 

"Doctor Scully, do you know what is wrong with my daughter?" he asked.

"Mr. Teixeira, there's a series of tests that will help me diagnose her, but I don't have all the results yet. I know I've already asked, but has your daughter had anything like this, or these symptoms, before? Talking nonstop? Low affect? Confusion?"

Goito hesitated.

"Mr. Teixeira?" Scully prompted.

"I didn't believe her, my wife, when she said our daughter was seeing the future," he replied. "But, yes, she has done this before, the trance-like talking she did this morning. It started about two months ago."

"This has been happening for two months?"

"No, no... the first time she was like this was two months ago. My wife says she spoke about the ravens and crows gathering, like how she used to talk in her sleep. Two weeks later, I had to call animal control because someone dumped half a carcass near our house, and the ravens would not leave. My Saura, she uses this to record her dreams," he said, producing a digital audio recorder. "This proves what her mother said to be true."

"Mr. Teixeira..." Scully began.

"Foresight is a terrible affliction," Goita said, bowing his head. "All those who have such a gift are cursed to live in the present and the future at the same time. They have no choice but to embrace madness and live ill for all their days. This is what my father taught me, and my wife's family, they tell similar stories, even though they came from the world over. It must be truth to survive from here to there."

"I can't speak to that." 

"I understand," he said miserably.

"But I can see this is important to you. If you'd like, I know an expert who can talk with you."

"But it is you that is her doctor."

"I don't wish to insult you or question your beliefs, Mr. Teixeira, but your daughter has a serious medical condition, and in all likelihood, it is the cause of her incoherent and continuous speech," Scully said, as gently as possible. 

Goita said, "Doctor Scully, all I want is for my wife and daughter be healthy again. If Saura never predicts another raindrop, I don't care. I just want her well. Please, take this," he said, offering the tape recorder. "I don't want it."

 

Mulder decided that the ancient mutant mummy could wait a few more days before he discussed it with Scully. She seemed unhappy at lunch, and he was worried.

The landline rang. 

"Hello," he said. 

"Mulder? It's Charles," the caller said. 

"Is something wrong?" Mulder asked, concerned.

"No, everything is fine. I promised Dana I'd call and say there's nothing wrong. So, there's nothing wrong. Tell my big sister not to worry."

"She'll be home soon, if you - "

"No, no," Charles interrupted. "Please, Fox, there's a three-hour time difference. It's late over here, and I promise you, everything and everyone is fine. A handful, but fine. Okay? I'll see you both in two weeks."

"Fine, I'll let you off the hook this time, but don't call me Fox."

He hung up. Scully's younger brother liked him considerably more than her older brother, but given how much Bill Scully hated him, that wasn't hard to do. He had done his best to endear himself to the Scully family after they learned that Scully had been in a relationship with him when he was on the lam and lied about it for years to keep him safe. Over time, her mother and Charles came around, though Bill remained forever on the fence, only accepting Mulder as his brother-in-law because has had no choice.

"Mulder," Scully said as she came in. "Did you cook?"

"Actually, I ordered in," he replied. "Charles called. He said everything is fine."

"Charles called? Why? Are they all right? What else did he say?" she asked.

"Nothing," he replied. "Just that he'd promised you he'd call, so he did. He sounded fine. Tired, maybe, but fine. Come on, you must be hungry."

They went into the dining room, which was set with Chinese take out still in the boxes. 

"Do you think Skinner sent us the papers for a reason?" she asked as they sat down to eat. 

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe he wants us to foster in this state for a specific case," she replied. "Maybe he needs secured housing for a minor."

"I think it's just for our cover story," Mulder said. "If we're registered as foster parents for minors with special circumstances in this state, then any connection to the FBI or DHS can be explained by us protecting a minor for a case. And since those records are kept sealed..."

She completed his thought, "He's really pushing for you to take that consulting job."

"I think it's more than that. He's looking out for us, Scully, like he's always done."

"Then I think we should file the paperwork," she said. "Unless you found a reason not to."

"Actually, applying in Oregon is much easier than applying in Virginia. With our history, I think all we'll need is a home study and a background check."

"We might as well get everything in order now, while we have the time," she replied. "Let's file them tomorrow."

 

The next morning, Scully checked in on Saura. She was doing much better. 

"All she had was fluids and ibuprofen for her headache," Hembree said. "But somehow, she's just... better. No fever. She's been quiet, besides asking for something to eat."

"What about her orientation to time and place and ataxia?" Scully asked.

"I did a full neuro test just an hour ago. All clear."

"You're sure all she's had is ibuprofen and fluids?" she asked.

"You did prescribe diazepam yesterday, but no more was administered after you left. And she refused sleeping pills," he said. "She didn't sleep through the night, but she's sleeping now."

"That's a good sign."

"You think she just had dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance?" he asked.

"No, I don't," she replied. "Thank you for watching her last night, Doctor Hembree. Good work."

Scully made rounds on her other patients admitted from the multi-car crash. All of them were doing well in post-op, so she returned to her office.

The lab had stacked Saura's test results and radiology reports in her inbox. 

According to the radiology report, the MRI revealed nothing abnormal. There were no aneurisms, blood clots, or other vascular anomalies, and there was nothing to indicate a subarachnoid bleed, concussion, tissue damage from a stroke or seizure, or any kind of trauma to the brain whatsoever. The contrast MRI ruled out tumors, lesions, hydrocephalus, and encephalitis.

The long-term drug analysis from her hair came back negative for everything except her ADHD medication, which matched the dosage of her prescription. Normally, a table full of negative lab results was a good thing, but right now Scully had what most would argue to be a perfectly healthy patient with relapsing and remitting neurological symptoms.

The one consistent symptom was low-grade fever, and Scully theorized that the only reason Saura's temperature was normal now was the ibuprofen she received for her headache. With that in mind, she decided to order a battery of tests: blood cultures to detect parasites, fungi, and bacteria; antibody detection for viruses; and a lumbar puncture to detect abnormalities in protein serum. 

Nurse Dallon knocked on her open door.

"Doctor Scully," he said. "Mr. Teixeira is... I think you should come quick."

She followed Dallon down the hall to Saura's room. 

"Doctor Scully," Goito said. "Please, something is very wrong. She woke up and asked for a pen and paper, and...."

Scully looked at Saura, who was leaning over the notepad and scribbling. She seemed distressed, even frantic. 

"Saura, what's wrong?" Scully asked.

"Can't get the word," she replied. "I can't..."

After a moment of frustrated silence, Saura violently threw the notepad. It landed at the end of her bed. 

"She is never like this," Goito said. "She's never violent, Doctor Scully."

Scully picked up the notepad and examined it.

"She was having trouble speaking when I came to get you," Dallon explained. "She'd be fine, but then stop, like she couldn't find the word she wanted."

The pad contained the beginnings of a journal entry, with the date's date, location, and time along the time. The first phrase was, "A fiery object, returning..." but the rest was a mystery. Saura's penmanship went from scribbles to completely illegible, though she kept trying to write for almost the entire page. 

"Saura, listen to me, you're going to be all right," Scully said. "Just do your best to relax and rest. Don't try to write or speak, all right?"

"What is happening to my daughter?" 

"Let's talk in the hall so she can rest," Scully suggested.

Nurse Dallon coaxed Saura to lie back as Scully and Goita stepped out.

"What is this?" he demanded as soon as they were in the hall.

"Your daughter is experiencing aphasia," she explained. "She knows what she wants to say, and she's aware of the words she can use to express those ideas, but she can't recall the words themselves. Dysgraphia, or the inability to write, is a related symptom."

"You're saying my daughter is forgetting how to speak?" he asked. "How is that possible? Yesterday she did nothing but speak!"

"I assure you, she is not forgetting how to speak," Scully said. "She retains all her language skills, and in all likelihood, this symptom will get better before a final diagnosis is made."

"So you do not know what is wrong," he said. "My wife is recovered. Soon she will be well enough to demand we take our daughter home. She will not let Saura end up like her birth mother, Doctor Scully. And neither will I."

 

Mulder met with CJ to accept the job offer. She seemed unsurprised and insisted that he join her for a coffee.

"Has anyone ever said why it is that predicting the future is such hazy business?" CJ asked. 

"In some cases, it isn't," he said. "Cassandra was pretty clear when she told the Trojans that the horse would be the downfall of Troy, should they bring it inside.

"But no one believed her," CJ said.

"And the priests who predicted Siddhartha's future said he'd either become a powerful monarch or a great holy man," Mulder said. "The Oracle at Delphi said that Oedipus would murder his father and marry his mother."

"But plenty of other predictions made at Delphi were obscure. Croesus of Lydia asked if he could defeat Persia. He was told his efforts would destroy a great kingdom, and he need only fear when a mule became the king of the Medians," CJ replied. "He didn't realize that Cyrus, a man half Mede, half Persian, could be considered a 'mule.' So he attacked, and the great kingdom of that was the Greek city states fell."

"The prophecy was right, just not his interpretation," Mulder said.

"But it was vague enough to have more than one interpretation," she said. "Why do you think that is?"

"The obvious reason is, if it were any other way, it wouldn't be much of a story," he replied. "Another reason is that our brains evolved to interpret our environment and learn from our history. That's past and present. All our senses and perception are tuned to the then and now. When it comes to the future, the only resource we have is our imagination. It's an amazing tool, but language fails spectacularly to communicate it."

"So you think the problem with foresight isn't the ability, but rather the communication? The words?" she asked.

"Miscommunication can occur when discussing even the most mundane things, let alone when interpreting the future."

"You talk like you believe," she said. "Like you believe someone can predict the future. Not a swindler, not a trick, but an actual oracle."

"Let's just say, I want to believe."

 

Scully spent most of her day investigating possible causes of Saura's condition. Her headaches had returned, and her aphasia disappeared only to be replaced by her continuous speech again.

Throughout the day, the orderlies and nurses who interacted with Saura insisted that she predicted future events: a call from an old friend, finding a lost necklace, a flat tire, and a pet falling ill. As far as Scully was concerned, these were no more predictions than a fortune cookie, and they were all along the lines of her previous 'predictions.' Her words were so vague as to mean anything at all.

Saura's blood work was normal. Her white count was normal, and there was no indication of any kind of infection, be it parasitic, viral, bacteria, or fungal. The lab still had some cultures growing, which meant she'd have more results tomorrow. 

But she wasn't hopeful that they'd yield any results.

That left genetic disorders, diabetes, autoimmune response, toxic exposure, and cancer, though she had no findings to support the those possibilities. Since Saura was adopted, there was no way to narrow down the genetic disorders, and even if she could identify a smaller subset to run, those tests could take weeks.

And there was that nagging voice in the back of her head (the one that sounded much like Mulder) that told her that this young girl just might be what people said she was: gifted and cursed at the same time. The more she dismissed it, the louder the voice got.

On her way out, she asked Nurse Forest to order a diabetes test for Saura. The rest she'd deal with tomorrow.

 

Scully arrived home, tired and frustrated, and she was unsurprised to discover Mulder in his office, pouring over cases about psychic abilities.

"What's up doc?" he said as she entered his home office. "How is your patient doing?"

"Not well, and I can't find a cause."

"You will," he said. 

"Even if I do, there's a strong possibility that she has a life-long illness, possibly progressive," she replied. "I feel like there are no good outcomes."

He stood up and abandoned his files. "I heard about this little Italian place that serves pizza," he said.

"Mulder..."

"We've been here over a week and haven't been out to a restaurant," he said. "Come on, I've heard good things from a professor of archeology. That's gotta mean something."

 

Mulder took Scully to the little pizzeria. It was cozy and a little romantic, but he doubted she noticed. She might've been sitting across the table from him, but she was a thousand miles away. 

He brought up the application process for becoming a secure foster home in Oregon, which was a pleasant enough discussion, but she still didn't really seem present during the conversation. 

"Scully, what's wrong?"

"Mulder, don't..."

"I've tried to distract you with charm, wit, and state-required paperwork," he said. "Obviously, none of it's worked."

"It's not you, Mulder, it's this patient of mine," she replied.

"Pythia," he said. "Assuming this is the same future-predicting patient whose recorder you gave. I've been referring to her as Pythia."

"She can't predict the future," Scully said. "And, yes, that's the patient I mean. Pythia, Mulder? Really?"

"The Oracle of Delphi was too long for a pseudonym."

"So you picked Pythia because it's pithy?"

"Actually, I picked it because I wanted to give her a name, especially after listening to this," he said, pulling out the digital recorder. "We can solve this case together, like the old days."

"This isn't an investigation," she replied.

"Not in the traditional sense, but it has all the same components. Physical evidence, a case history, someone who needs help. I might not be a doctor, but I think it's fair to say some of you has rubbed off on me in the past twenty-odd years."

Scully nibbled on her pizza to give herself time to think.

"All right, Mulder, do you have a theory?" she asked.

"First, there are two recordings on here that are different from all the later entries. I can tell from the time stamps, she was in the habit of recording her dreams as soon as she woke up whenever she woke up. Both of these were made around three in the morning. Here, take a listen," he said. He pulled a pair of ear buds out of his jacket pocket.

Scully took one. Apparently she wanted him to listen, too, even though he'd listened to it several times today. He obliged and hit play.

> _I'm alone and happy. Naked but warmed by the sun and safe. I walk slowly. The earth splits. A great crack that pulls open right to the core of the world._
> 
> _A roar. So loud, it's deafening but beautiful. Something rises like smoke from the earth. Darkness unformed. A shadow with nothing to cast it._
> 
> _A dragon made of shadows._
> 
> _The sun is gone. It is cold and dark. The earth is gone from my feet, and I fly free. No danger to see, none to hear._
> 
> _It's terrible and wonderful and silent._
> 
> _I'm surrounded by winding walls. I would climb them, but they're all bone and skulls. I can't touch them. I won't._
> 
> _The walls move. And then I see from above. I see myself from above, surrounded by walls. A maze, a labyrinth. It never ends, and I want to see it. I want to see why. Who else is here? I want to see._

There was a beep indicating the end of an entry.

"Mulder, what does this prove, exactly?" she asked.

"Jungian dream interpretation sees dragons and similar monsters as the personification of regressive influences in the unconscious that threaten to swallow the ego. It's a common archetypal motif in mythology, Scully. The hero descends into the abyss, dying to be reborn into a new role in life. Fighting a dragon can represent an internal conflict over a major transition, and since they are known for protected treasure, it may also represent the acquisition of a new skill or material wealth. Though, admittedly, the allegory is more common to those facing external conflicts, such as taking the MCATs to get into medical school."

"So you think she's psychic because of her dream?" Scully asked. 

"What I'm saying is that these dreams make sense for a young girl coming into a psychic ability," he said. "I have dozens of cases about psychic skills manifesting during puberty of adolescence preceded by signs and indicators such as dreams just like this, filled with savage and terrifying images and events, yet the dreamer, the one experiencing it, isn't frightened by any of it."

"So you agree with her parents. This girl has The Sight, or whatever it's called, and her neurological symptoms are just a consequence of it?" she asked. 

"Actually, not at all. For each case I have about extrasensory abilities developing with age, I have three cases of such abilities manifesting as a direct result of illness or physiological abnormality, most of which are brain tumors. That being said, these paranormal aptitudes that appear as byproducts of disease or disorder never have corresponding harbingers like this. In fact, the ability itself is usually the first indicator of disease. Seeing the future - assuming that that's what this is - manifested at the same time as her illness, preceded only by dreams that can be interpreted as a great transformation in her life. Pythia's case is in complete contradiction to everything I know about this kind of phenomenon."

Scully said, "I'm confused, Mulder. What are you saying?"

"What I'm say is... I'm confused, too," he replied simply. "Here, listen to the later entries."

They both returned their ear buds before he hit play.

>   
>  _Round and round... black thorny spies, down, down, down in their hunger. A brimming bog of carrion... where are they going? Why are they here?_
> 
> Beep!
> 
> _Shadows infiltrate the sky, infesting the clouds, falling back over us, binding to our lips, teeth, marrow..._
> 
> Beep!
> 
> _It's too loud, it won't stop. Make it stop! Make it stop! I can't... I can't hear! It's too loud... I can't hear!_
> 
> Beep! Beep!

"Those beeps mean it's the end of the audio," Mulder said before he pocketed the ear buds and recorder.

"It sounds to me like she was having nightmares," Scully said.

"I don't think so," Mulder replied. "These are all time-stamped later in the day. I don't think these are dreams at all, Scully. They have almost nothing in common with the other recordings. There's no description beyond the vague, almost poetical, images, not to mention the fear in her voice. It's like it overshadows everything she saw and experienced when she recorded these."

"And what do you think that means?"

"I don't know what it means yet," he said. "If I had a theory, I'd share it. What else do we know about her?"

Scully took a moment before she replied, as if wondering if she should be treating this as an investigation.

"So far every lab I've run on her comes back negative or within normal limits. No trauma to the brain, no tumors or vascular anomalies, nothing. All of her symptoms are neurological: headache, ataxia, aphasia, dysgraphia, logorrhea. She hasn't reported hallucinations, but it's clear she has them because she reacts to them. Her symptoms disappear and reappear, and right now I have no known cause."

"Is there any kind of behavior that causes most or all of those long medical terms you used?" he asked. "If it's not a disease, could it be caused by something she chooses to do, or not to do? Maybe she skips meals or won't eat anything green."

"If it was a vitamin imbalance, we would've caught it," Scully replied. "And I've tested her for drugs and drug abuse. There's no sign of anything like that."

"Is it possible that one or more of her symptoms is something else?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Is it possible that her difficulty writing is actually be a tremor or a tic?" he asked.

"No, her hand didn't show a tremor, but..." Scully began.

"But?" he prompted.

"Her continuous speech. It's like she's saying whatever comes to her without thinking or forming a solid idea."

"That makes sense. Like I said, she was in the habit of recording her dreams. They follow that same pattern. She'd speak in stream-of-consciousness, or rather, stream-of-unconsciousness. That's where the speaker gives impressions, emotions, and images immediately so as to avoid integrating the desperate elements of a memory or dream into a narrative, which many see as an inversion or corruption, an affect of the conscious mind asserting logic and reason where it doesn't belong. She'd describe the dream with as little interpretation or thinking as possible. It's not an easily acquired skill, Scully. She worked for it."

"So maybe her continuous speech isn't the inability to stop talking," Scully said. "Maybe it's a manifestation of disinhibition." 

"I thought you got that from drinking alcohol," Mulder said.

"Which means she could be living with an undiagnosed sleeping disorder," she said. "Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to all kinds of neurological symptoms, which can get better or worse under stress, at certain times of day, or for no reason at all."

"So, you think this is a sleeping disorder, doc? Which one?"

"The hallucinations... it's possible that she's been experience hypnogogic hallucinations. Her speech is fractured during these because she's falling in and out of sleep. Her ataxia could be the result of sleep deprivation, or perhaps a manifestation of cataplexy - "

Mulder interrupted, "Cataplexy. I used that word on Skinner the other day."

Scully continued, "Mulder, my patient takes a stimulantto treat her ADHD. It could effectively mask the more obvious symptoms of narcolepsy, both idiopathic and with cataplexy, leaving her with less diagnostic symptoms like sleep paralysis and automatic behavior."

"You sound happy," he said. "I take it that this is a good thing?"

"Well, no, there is no cure, but it's a treatable disorder that doesn't show results on any of the tests I've run. The only way to diagnose it is a polysomnogram and MSLT."

"See, getting the team back together works wonders on a brain fog."

"Which leaves one question to be answered."

"What's that?"

"Why did cataplexy come up when talking with Skinner?" she asked.

"Possible causes of zombies."

She laughed, and for the first time all night, she seemed relieved. 

Then her pager went off. 

"It's a nine one one from the hospital," she said. "I need to get back."

"Here, take the car," he said, handing her the keys. "I'll get a cab or walk back."

"Thank you," she said, squeezing his hand.

"Scully, one more thing about getting the old team together."

"What?"

"It reminded me that sometimes, you just have to go with your gut, even if the evidence isn't there. I think that holds true for you, maybe now more than ever."

 

Scully arrived at the hospital less than ten minutes later. Hembree seemed confused and, frankly, cowed. 

"Did you page me?" she asked.

"It's Saura," he replied. "She's had a seizure."

"A seizure? What kind?"

"Tonic-clonic."

"What was going on before it happened?" she asked.

"She was fine, talking normally," Hembree said to Scully. "She was saying how she wanted to go back to school because she misses her friends. She had no aphasia or any trouble speaking at all."

"Was she alert and clear?" Scully asked.

"Completely lucid. She didn't say much, but what she did say showed organized thought," he replied. "She also complained of a headache, even though she already had a dose of ibuprofen an hour ago. Then she seized."

"How is she now?"

"She responded well to the antiseizure meds, but all of her symptoms have come back in full force. She won't stop talking, even though the aphasia is back. Doctor Scully, I admit, I was wrong about her case. Do you have any idea what's going on with her?"

Her narcolepsy theory was bust. Saura could have a sleeping disorder and epilepsy, but it was far more reasonable to conclude that the seizure was a symptom of the same illness. Narcolepsy presented with seizure-like sleep attacks, where REM sleep intruded on waking activity, but a sleep attack wouldn't be confused with a tonic-clonic seizure and certainly didn't respond to anticonvulsants.

Without answering Hembree's question, Scully entered Saura's room. Her father was collapsed in a chair, exhausted and defeated, and Saura was sitting up in bed with a blank look on her face. 

It was going to be a long night.

 

Mulder waited up for Scully, even though she told him not to. He feigned sleep when she arrived home, and he continued to do so as she went through her nightly routine. 

It was past two in the morning when she finally crawled under the covers. 

"I know you're awake," she said. 

"Hi," he replied, opening his eyes. "You okay?"

"Not really. What would you tell this girl's father, Mulder? If he asked you about his daughter."

"I don't know. She's so young, Scully. If she does have a gift - and I do believe that she does - she needs to grow into it in her own time," he said quietly. "Chances are, once her illness is treated, whatever ability will go away."

"Mulder, if she's not treated, she could die," Scully said. "If her parents deny her treatment because they think she has an ability, I..."

He interrupted, "You'd never let that happen. Not as long as you could help it."

He reached out and touched her face. 

"You should get some sleep," he said.

"I can't, my mind is racing."

He came closer and pulled her into a long kiss.

"How about now?" he asked.

"Still racing," she replied.

He rolled onto his back, pulling her on top, and kissed her again. 

"What about now?"

"Not yet."

This time she kissed him, wrapping herself around him, seeking comfort in his eyes.

 

Scully checked in on Saura first thing in the morning. She was fast asleep, so she left for her office.

A woman of Southeast Asian descent was waiting for her. She was in a hospital gown. 

"You are Doctor Scully?" the woman asked.

"Yes, who are you?"

"My name is Manali Teixeira. I am Saura's mother," she said. "I was unwell before, but I have come to tell you that no doctor can treat The Sight. It simply is."

"Mrs. Teixeira, I assure you, I am not trying to treat The Sight - " 

Manali interrupted, "If you cannot find what is wrong and soon, we will take Saura home, where she belongs. You cannot treat The Sight, and I refuse to have her locked away like her birth mother."

"Mrs. Teixeira," Scully said. "There are a number of genetic disorders to consider. If I had the name or medical records of the biological parents, I could narrow down the possibilities. Your husband made it sound as if you knew the birth mother."

"I did. Her family was like mine, originally from India," Manali said. "But her name and medical files I will not give you. She had a gift that was smothered here in this country. That is all you need to know."

"Excuse me, Mrs. Teixeira?" said a nurse that Scully didn't recognize. "I don't mean to interrupt, but you really shouldn't be out of bed."

With that, the nurse escorted Manali to the elevator, guiding her back to her room.

Scully dropped off her things and immediately returned to Saura's room. Her father slept soundly in his chair, but she was awake and alert.

"Saura, how are you feeling?" Scully asked, keeping her voice low so as to not wake Goito.

"I guess I'm okay," she replied. 

A peculiar look passed over Saura's face. Scully thought it could be an absent seizure, but then she started speaking. At first, her words seemed incoherent, but they became stronger, more logical, as she went on.

"Not a wolf, not a hound, but a pup. Not a bite, a bark, peeling, peeling, rubbing away..." Saura said. In the next instant, she became completely aware and alert, and she looked Scully in the eye when she said, "You think it's your worst nightmare coming to life, but it's actually that dream you've always wanted, finally becoming reality."

"Saura, how are you feeling?" Scully repeated, not sure if she was more stunned or concerned.

"I'm okay," she said. "Doctor Scully, how can I be like you?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, Saura."

"You're not scared."

"What do you mean? Afraid of what?"

Saura said, "Of what you know. You know it, but you're not scared. You keep trying. I want to be like that." 

"I don't understand," she said. "What are you afraid of, Saura?" 

"Is she awake?" Goito said as he woke up.

"Yes, she's doing well," Scully said. "I'll leave you two so you can have your breakfast."

As she left the room, Nurse Dallon caught up with her.

"Doctor Scully, the lab repeated those tests you ordered. This one came back flagged."

"Flagged?" she asked. "As what?"

"As different from the one they ran two days ago. Not sure if it's because of a previous lab error or the expanded panels you asked for."

"Thank you," she said. 

The test was an expanded thyroid panel, which showed Saura's levels were within the normal range, but it showed that she tested positive for thyroid antibodies. That meant that Saura had autoimmune thyroiditis, and while it alone did not explain her symptoms, it had a related illness that explained everything, down to the lack of clinical findings. 

"Nurse Dallon," Scully said. "I need one hundred milligrams of prednisone ordered and prepared for Saura Teixeira. I also want tests throughout the day so her white blood cell count can be monitored."

"Yes, Doctor Scully. I don't mean to pry, but what is the diagnosis? I'm just curious."

"Hashimoto's encephalopathy," Scully replied. "She'll need to be monitored to see if we need to increase or decrease the dosage. As soon as Mr. Teixeira is done with breakfast, please bring him to my office so we can discuss her diagnosis and treatment."

 

Mulder was walking Rex when his cell phone rang.

"Mulder," he answered.

"Is this the expert in paranormal phenomenon?" the caller asked.

"Yes. To whom am I speaking?" 

"My name is Goito Teixeira. A doctor gave me your name and said you could help me."

"What is it you need?" he asked.

"My daughter is sick, and today, I heard her talk to a complete stranger so clearly, so... honestly about herself. I wonder, maybe she does not say things to me because I am her father, because she believes that she cannot say them to me."

Mulder replied. "I'm sorry, I'm not following you."

"I would like to talk with you, and then, maybe you speak with my daughter. She refused me and her mother, at least for talking about this. It is important for me that she decides for herself, but she should speak with someone."

"I understand," Mulder said. "I'd be happy to meet with you."

"I cannot leave the hospital. Will you come here?" he asked.

"Absolutely. When?"

 

Scully had dealt with angry parents before, but usually they came to her upset that their child wasn't getting better or because the diagnosis wasn't clear. This was completely different.

"I tell you you can't keep Saura here, and suddenly you have a reason to keep her!" Manali said. "How do we know that this is not some invention or ruse?"

"Mrs. Teixeira, I assure you, the diagnosis is neither subterfuge nor invention. Rare disorders can be difficult to diagnose, and Hashimoto's encephalopathy is rare. One consideration is her ADHD. She was diagnosed at age twelve, which is much later than most cases. It's possible that her ADHD is related to problems with her thyroid. Most reported cases of Hashimoto's are from young adults with a history of autoimmune thyroiditis - "

"Our daughter has no such history," Manali interrupted.

Scully explained, "That's true. She has no prior history, but I ran tests that confirm she has autoimmune thyroiditis. Saura is only fourteen, so I'm not surprised that she's never been tested or diagnosed with it before."

Goito asked, "Please, Doctor Scully, will our daughter be well again? When will she go home?"

"Saura's prognosis is very good. Hashimoto's is very treatable. She'll need to be on high-dose prednisone, but once her symptoms remit, we can slowly reduce her dosage until she no longer needs the medication. Most cases remain in remission. Her thyroiditis might require additional treatment, but if she responds well, she could go home as soon as Monday night."

"The Sight cannot be cured," Manali said.

"Mr. and Mrs. Teixeira," Scully began politely. "I am a doctor. I'm treating your daughter, not The Sight or any... special ability she may have. I don't know if I've communicated this clearly, but Hashimoto's encephalopathy is a good thing. It's treatable, and in most cases, curable. Saura will live a long and healthy life."

"You don't believe, which means you don't understand," Goito said. 

"I have no interest in questioning or insulting your beliefs," she said. "I just want to help your daughter get well if I can."

Manali relaxed a little. It was a start.

 

 **Four days later...** Fox Mulder knocked on the patient room door. 

"Come in."

Saura was dressed in her own pajamas, likely because she would be going home today. 

"Hi, Saura, I'm Fox," he said. 

"Hi."

"Your father asked me to talk with you," he said. "He was worried you felt like you couldn't tell him or your mom."

"I can't always tell them," she said. "I want to, but I can't."

"If you want, you can tell me."

"Not really."

"I've known people with special gifts," he said. "One of my friends... he can hear thoughts."

"Are you making that up?" she asked. 

"No, one of my friends can hear other people's thoughts. He'd reply to things I hadn't said out loud yet."

"Cool."

"Saura, your parents believe you can see the future. According to a lot of people here, you predicted things that came next with a high accuracy," he said. "Do you remember that?"

She shook her head, no.

"Before you were sick, did you see the future?" he asked. 

Again, she shook her head, no.

"You want to hear my theory?"

She shrugged.

Mulder could tell that Saura was an introvert and very shy, and she had a kind of innocent wisdom that most adults never possess. 

"I think you've been seeing the future for a long time now, in one form or another. And whatever your parents believe about this particular gift, it's not because you're ill, and it doesn't make you sick, either. The one thing I don't understand is... how do you keep it secret? And why?"

Saura looked away for several minutes. 

"You remind me of me a long time ago," Mulder said. "I had my own mission, my own plan, and my own gifts I guess you could say. I was so used to people thinking I was some nut to be dismissed that I kept everyone at arm's length. It was pretty rough, and it wasn't until I dared to let someone in that things got better for me. Saura, you don't have to talk to me, but you talk to someone."

"If I could see the future before it happens," she said. "I wouldn't want anyone to know. They might use it to do bad things."

"That makes sense."

"But how can I know whose reasons are good or bad?" she asked. "I wouldn't want anyone to know what I could do, I mean, if I could do it. What if they threatened to hurt me? I heard my mom talking a young boy who could predict the future. He grew up in the same city as my mom in India. She said that people would beat him if he didn't tell them things. So if I could do that, I would keep it to myself."

"That's smart," he said. "So tell me, Saura, if you had this gift, Saura, what would you do with it?"

She shrugged. "I guess, nothing."

"Aw, come on," he said. "Why not play the lottery?"

"That'd be wrong."

"Then, what would be right?" he asked. 

"My dad said that people only see what they look for," she said. "Maybe, sometimes, something that needs to be seen, but nobody looking. Maybe seeing what could be coming next is just a way to get someone to look."

Someone knocked on the door.

"If we had had this conversation," Mulder said. "Your secret would be safe with me. I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Thanks, Fox," Saura replied. 

Mulder opened the door, and Scully joined them.

"Hello Saura," Scully said. "How are you?"

"Hi Doctor Scully, I'm - "

A blank look suddenly overcame Saura. For a few moments, she seemed absent. 

"Can I asked you something?" she asked suddenly. 

"Of course," Scully replied.

"When I look at you, I see a boomerang, or something hot and blazing has gone round and round and is coming straight back at you. You see it, and you smile. Both of you. I just want to know why. Why do you smile when everyone else would be too afraid?"

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, confused. He didn't know if she wanted him to answer, but even if she did, he had no idea what to say.

Saura laughed. 

"Saura?" Scully asked.

"It's okay, I understand now," she said. "Thanks, Fox and Doctor Scully."

 

After discharging Saura, Scully went to her office to find Mulder waiting for her. 

"Sounded to me like your conversation with Saura went well," she said.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it didn't happen. Ten to one that girl is gonna be a lawyer," he replied.

"You think Saura will be a lawyer who can see the future? That's terrifying, even for you, Mulder."

"You don't think she can see the future, do you?" he asked.

"You do?" she asked.

"Yes."

"You know, I thought you'd be spending the rest of this week celebrating your last few days of freedom," she said. "Charles left a message saying he'd be here on Saturday with the kids. Life's only going to get busier here on out." 

"Tell me about it."

"Mulder, I think you should call Skinner," she said. "Tell him you'll take the job."

"Scully, next week our hands will be so full that I won't even be able to think about - "

"That's my point," she said, interrupting. "If you don't accept now, you might tell Skinner you can't, and we both know you want to."

"Are you yanking my chain, Scully?"

"No, Mulder. I just realized that you're right. We're a great team, but it's hard to remember that when we haven't had something to work on together in a while. So maybe this consulting job will give us a few more reminders."

"Then let me ask you something, Scully, as my partner in crime," he said dramatically. "What do you think that fiery boomerang thing was?"

> Personal notes on Patient Number TVH150002:
> 
> After high-dose prednisone treatment began, the patient's symptoms went into full remission, though she has reported several side effects from the medication, including dry mouth, flushing, and dry skin. Given the severity of her symptoms during her untreated experience of Hashimoto's encephalopathy, these side effects have been deemed acceptable, by both the patient and her parents. It is my hope that her condition will remain stable as we reduce her dosage over the next few weeks.
> 
> As to the question of whether or not Patient TVH150002 could predict the future, I have no answer. There is simply no evidence to support such a theory, and it is my personal hope that no further inquiries will be made now that she has gone into remission. 
> 
> It is not surprising that the incoherent and broken words that Patient TVH150002 spoke were imbued with additional meaning, with the belief that she was doing more than reacting to an autoimmune disorder. The human brain has evolved to perceive information and identify patterns in the random and chaotic events of life in order to promote survival. One of the side effects of this ability is that humans relentless seek meaning in the events of everyday life and see familiar forms wherever we look. For example, people see faces or animals in clouds, a gathering of dust, or even shadows. The moon has often been believed to be the home of hare because its image is seen on the moon's face. For the same reason, other cultures and traditions identify the inhabitant of the moon as man.
> 
> Apophonia, or identifying patterns where there are none, can be indicative of an unhealthy psyche, but any person can fall under the spell of perceiving something desired even when it simply isn't there, be it a harbinger of future events or a curable disease.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations and Pronunciation Guide**  
>  The following terms and phrases were referenced in this chapter. 
> 
> **aphasia** (pronounced "ay-faze-ee-ah") is used to describe a number of language disorders, including difficulty with word finding despite previous knowledge of the desired word. 
> 
> **ataxia** (pronounced "ay-tax-ee-ah") is a neurological problem that arises from a lack of voluntary muscle coordination, resulting in movement disorders, including an abnormal gait while walking.
> 
>  **criar malvas** (Portuguese) translates literally as "to make/to build mallows," and the expression is an idiom equivalent to the English "pushing up daisies," a euphemism for someone being dead in buried.
> 
>  **dysgraphia** (pronounced "dis-graff-ee-ah") is difficulty or deficiency in handwriting. 
> 
> **logorrhea** (pronounced "law-guh-re-ah") refers to pathological speech that is incoherent or repetitive, though it can also refer to incessant talking.
> 
>  **não por favor** (Portuguese) translates to "no please."
> 
>  **Teixeira** (pronounced tey-sher-ah) a common Portuguese and Brazilian surname derived from the Portuguese _teixo_ , meaning 'yew tree.'


	4. Feral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's an X-File in Portland. 
> 
> A vicious homicide ends with partial remains outside the door of a detective from another county, who came to Portland looking for a person of interest in the dismemberment of a John Doe. The victim had a name and Portland address in his wallet: Dana Scully. 
> 
> Sean Renard soon realizes that the homicides may involve _wesen_ with a rare affliction of mind and body, which makes them the most dangerous predators on the planet. The investigation is complicated when the FBI assigns a special investigator named Fox Mulder to the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** : This chapter is still undergoing revisions/beta reading.
> 
> For common terminology definitions and pronunciation, see end-of-chapter notes.

> And when his sevens sons yet did not come, the father flew into a rage and wished them all turned into ravens. As soon as he had said these words, he heard a croaking over his head, and he looked up and saw seven ravens as black as coal flying round and round.  
> \-- The Seven Ravens

 

Drew Wu was new to the _wesen_ world, but when it came to the world of crime, dirt bags, and shady histories, he was a pro. 

And that was why, on a Monday night way past his shift, he was at the station, pouring over background checks.

It was procedure to run anybody connected to a homicide, including whoever called in the body. That's why they initially processed Doctor Dana Scully. Procedure. The same goes for Fox Mulder, the man who found the dog. No one bothered looking at the complete background reports from the local FBI field office because they came in after Griffin and Burkhardt closed the Steven Briggs case. 

Wu only read them over because he was asked to double-check the paperwork before filing it away. He should've been done hours ago, but he couldn't buck the feeling that there was something wrong with the FBI's summaries for the two former agents. 

"Sergeant Wu?" 

Wu tore his eyes away from the page and saw Captain Sean Renard standing next to him.

"Hey, Captain."

"Is something wrong?" Renard asked.

"No, Hank said I could use his desk," Wu said absentmindedly. After a brief pause, he added, "You're right, Captain, I should just file this and head home."

"What did you find?"

"It's nothing," he replied as he stood up.

"Let me be the judge of that."

Wu paused to gather his thoughts. He said, "The FBI sent the world's most boring background reports on our two former agent witnesses. Something's not right about them."

"They were just preliminary identity confirmations."

"I'm not talking about those. They sent us the final reports on Friday, and they're less than two pages long. These are two agents that worked with the bureau for over ten years. There's no mention of their assignment at the D.C. office. No department, no special cases, nothing about their work whatsoever. There aren't even any reprimands or commendations."

"What're you thinking, Wu?" 

"I'm thinking... either these two were the least successful and most boring field agents that the FBI never fired or..."

"Or their assignment has been classified or redacted," Renard suggested.

"Redacted ten years of work? I can see it for a special case or a task force, sure, but every case they worked on for their entire time at the FBI? Not to mention..." Wu stopped when he recognized how paranoid he sounded.

"Wu, we're already down the rabbit hole, you might as well finish your thought."

"I know this sounds paranoid," Wu said. "But, usually when the FBI has people on covert ops, don't they do a better job of hiding it? Wouldn't they send us a detailed report with a full history? It'd look a little too neat, maybe, but it'd include a department assignment and citations because that's what we expect to receive."

"You want to know why they don't have a cover story," Renard suggested.

"Yeah, exactly. It's like the FBI doesn't want anyone to know what these guys worked on but doesn't care enough to hide it."

"Or, maybe, they were the world's most boring FBI agents," Renard replied. 

"But they also have notes in their reports about being abducted. Separate crimes, separate dates, but both were missing for months at a time with no ransom demands, discovered nearly dead, and then recovered miraculously," Wu said. "Doesn't sound boring to me."

"Before you file that, make copies and drop them on my desk. What were their names again?" Renard asked.

"Doctor Dana Scully and Fox Mulder."

"I'll see if my contacts can find anything out about them. It might be that they handled cases related to homeland security before DHS was created, or it could be something the FBI won't share with a local department."

"You really think this is looking into?" Wu asked, surprised.

"I trust your instinct on this one," Renard said. "Given this department's recent history with the FBI - especially my recent history - I think it's best to turn over every rock, just in case."

"Right, I'll make sure the copies are on your desk before I leave tonight, sir."

"Good work, Wu."

 

It was ten at night, and Nick Burckhardt was lying in his guestroom alone. He attempted to sleep, closing his eyes and willing himself to relax, but it didn't work. After trying for what felt like hours, he rolled over and checked the clock.

It was only ten fifteen.

Frustrated, he clenched his eyes shut, hoping that the darkness would lull him to sleep.

Then he felt something warm and heavy at his side, and a hand drifted up his arm to his shoulder, gripping it tightly. He opened his eyes.

"Juliette?"

"I miss you."

"I miss you, too," he said as he rolled over to face her.

"Then why are you in here?"

"Because you asked me to." 

"You're in here when you want to be in our room because I told you to?" 

"Pretty much."

"And you're just waiting for me to invite you back in?"

"I think it's called being in the doghouse. I've never really been here before, so I'm guessing."

"Nick..."

"What?"

"Shut up."

Then she kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around her, bringing her close as he kissed back, his hands wandering to her lower back and face. 

And it was like the last six months never happened. Like he never lost his powers to begin with, so they never tried to reverse it. She never became a Hexenbiest. They were just Juliette and Nick, and everything was right again.

She rolled on top, slipping off his shirt and throwing her own in the corner soon after. He flipped them, covering her body with his own. Her hands were everywhere. 

Sweat covered his forehead. He was too warm, so he tossed the sheets and covers. His entire body was hot.

Incredibly hot, actually. Painfully hot, even. 

"Juliette? Juliette... what's happening?"

He lost his balance and fell off the bed, crashing to the ground with no control of his body. He flailed miserably.

"Nick?!" she yelled. "Nick! Stop moving!"

Juliette was at his side with a panicked look on her face. He couldn't stop moving, so she grabbed him to hold him still. When that didn't work, she _woged_ , which gave her the strength to keep him still.

He blinked, and he breathed. He inhaled the sick scent of burnt flesh, realizing to his horror that it was his own.

He had been on fire.

"Nick, I'm so sorry!" Juliette said as she returned to her human form. "Nick, can you hear me? Blink twice if you can hear me."

He blinked twice.

"Spice...shop," Nick managed to say through his charred lips. 

"You're going to be all right," she said. "I promise I'll get you there. Just keep breathing, Nick. Okay? Just keep breathing."

 

Wu sat in his usual spot at the restaurant he always went to for a late night beer and burger. He was halfway through his routine when someone interrupted.

"You mind?" she asked, indicating the empty seat next to him at the bar.

He turned to the speaker, an olive-skinned woman in her fifties with medium-length black hair and small eyes. She was tall, lean, and wearing clothing far too professional for this establishment.

"Go for it," Wu replied.

Nasir Sims, the bartender, smiled at the new arrival. He asked, "What can I get you?"

"Fries, ketchup, and whiskey, no ice," she replied.

"Coming right up."

"You got a designated driver?" Wu asked.

"You offering?"

"I'm on my third, so no. Fair warning, if you refill your whiskey, Nasir takes your keys," Wu said.

When Nasir returned with a whiskey, the woman handed him her car keys.

"Wise choice," he said. "Your fries will be up soon."

"You drinking for a special occasion?" Wu asked.

"Nah, just need a little sleeping assist is all, and drinking alone has too much bad press," she replied. "Name's Annabel Wilder."

"Drew Wu."

 

Rosalee felt totally unprepared. She and Monroe made it to the Spice Shop in record time. He raced down into the basement, and she began to set up the back room, lowering the lab table, clearing it, and sterilizing it as best she could. 

He lugged in the Calvert Family Medical Trunk that her grandfather had made and placed it on the coffee table.

"We need distilled water, neem leaves, _ulmus fulva_ , and _cornu cervi parvum_ ," Rosalee said as she prepared the mortars and pestles. 

Monroe pulled a dozen bottles from the trunk and lined them up on the apothecary table.

"We need to pound these three ingredients into a power, mix them, and add water to make a gel. Then we can apply it to his skin and cover it with bandages," she said.

They both started crushing the ingredients.

"You sure about this?" Monroe asked.

"If what Juliette described is accurate," she replied warily. 

"Did she say anything about, you know, what happened?"

"She said it was an accident. She sounded... panicked."

"Shouldn't they be here, like, now? I mean, it's been forty minutes. So where are they?"

"I don't know."

"What do we do?" he asked.

"We wait."

"We wait?"

"We wait."

Then frantic knocking came from the side door. Monroe opened it, and Juliette pushed past him immediately, followed by Renard, carrying a hand-held stretcher between them with straps running over a bed sheet.

"Is that Nick?" Monroe asked.

Rosalee undid the straps, and together all four moved the man in the sheet to the lowered lab table.

"I did like you said. I dressed the wounds, and I added the sheet so the straps wouldn't compress anything. He stopped responding after we got him into the car," Juliette said quickly. "Please tell me you can help him."

Rosalee peeked under the sheet and nearly wretched at what she saw. 

"Is he all right?" Renard asked.

"We're going to need more sterile dressings," she replied. "And the medical grade cling-wrap."

"Is he okay?" Monroe asked. "He smells... like a barbeque." 

"He's still breathing, heart rate is elevated," Rosalee replied. "But he does need treatment, so - "

"I got a call in the middle of the night that there's been an accident with Nick," Renard said, interrupting. "I didn't ask at the time, but I'm asking now. What the hell is going on, and what happened?"

"He got burned," Rosalee replied.

"I was at their house, there was no sign of fire," Renard said. "Juliette, who did this?"

"I did," she said quietly.

Monroe asked, "What do you mean, you did this?"

"Things have been better, so I thought maybe we could reconnect. Or try at least. And everything was fine... actually, everything was wonderful until he started burning." 

Monroe went to Nick, and before Rosalee could stop him, he threw back the sheet, revealing that Nick's entire body was burned. Except for his head, which had second-degree burns, all his skin was charred white, black, and red, and the gruesome injuries were covered with nothing more than a light layer of plastic wrap dressing.

Monroe's eyes glowed red while Renard stepped back, horrified. 

"This wasn't a normal fire," Monroe said. "These are way beyond third degree burns, Juliette. Look at him! He's been burned inside-out!"

"It was an accident!" Juliette pleaded.

"Look at him!" Monroe shouted as he _woged_. "Look at what you did to him!"

"I didn't mean to, I didn't know what was happening - "

Monroe interrupted, shouting, "You were trying to kill him, weren't you? You wanted to punish him for what happened to you! It's not his fault! You said you'd accept the risks! You said you'd do anything to help him!"

His anger peaked, and he _woged_ , roared, and went straight for Juliette.

"Stop it!" Rosalee said as she stepped between them. "This is not helping Nick!"

Monroe stopped and completed the _woge_ , but the anger was still plain on his face.

"I didn't know," Juliette repeated, cowering behind Rosalee. "I didn't mean to! Please, we have to help him..."

"Monroe!" Rosalee snapped. "Listen to me, you have just proven that Juliette is not the only _wesen_ in this room whose emotions can get the best of them. We need the medical cling-wrap and more sterile dressing cloths. They're down in the basement."

He nodded and left the room.

"Uh... I'm going to call Helena. She might know something that can help," Renard said as he followed Monroe into the next room.

"Are you okay?" Rosalee said to Juliette.

"What? No!" she replied. "Look at Nick! This happened because I was... is this all I can do now? Destroy everyone around me?"

"We can talk about that later. Right now, I need you to tell me exactly what happened."

 

Mulder woke up to the sound of his cell phone ringing. He tried to silence it, but he was too late. Scully tossed and turned, meaning it had woken her up. He felt a little guilty as he got out of bed and took his phone out of the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him.

"Mulder," he whispered as he walked to his home office.

"It's Skinner. Why are you whispering?"

"Because it's never smart to wake sleeping Scullys," Mulder replied, still whispering. 

"Then get your ass somewhere you can speak up."

Mulder went down the stairs and into his home office before he replied, "Well, good morning to you, too."

"Now that I can finally hear you, I've got an assignment for you," Skinner said. 

"I don't work for you anymore."

"You accepted the consulting job, didn't you?"

"Yeah, the consulting job with the single assignment."

"Technically, but your contract also allows me to assign you to cases as an FBI special investigator working with local law enforcement on a case in their jurisdiction."

"Next time I'll read the fine print."

"Trust me, Mulder, you want this assignment," Skinner said. "The Seattle field office and Portland PD both reported recent homicides that match an open X-File."

"You could've led with that." 

"The FBI doesn't want this case. I could pull Doggett and Reyes off their current assignment, but that'll attract a lot of attention that I'd rather avoid."

"Skinner, you had me at 'X-File,' just send me the old case file and the recent homicide reports, and I'll start now."

"I've already sent you a secure email with the recent reports, but I can't send you the X-File."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because according to the FBI, the X-Files don't exist."

"Whatever the technicalities are, they did exist at one point, and those cases generated paperwork," Mulder said.

"I can't send you files that are not supposed to exist," Skinner said. "But the case number was X-80391 and the investigation took place in June of two thousand in Burley, Idaho."

"June two thousand?" Mulder repeated. "You're telling me you can't send me the file, even though this case was investigated during my abduction?"

"You're telling me you don't have a copy of every X-File squirreled away somewhere?" 

"Even if I did have this specific file, which I'm not sure I do, it's not official. I can't bring it to the detectives on these homicides and offer them a profile."

Skinner replied, "Just check if you have it. If you don't, Scully or Doggett must have a copy somewhere. Once you read it, I think you'll realize that official files won't be necessary."

"Enlighten me."

"No one could figure out if the killer in this case was a man or an animal. Scully's assessment of the forensics suggested a probable animal of abnormal size and temperament with enough intelligence to hold a grudge and exact revenge."

"Sounds like a man to me," Mulder replied.

"I have every confidence that you can and will close this case, Mulder. As soon as possible, report to the Portland field office to obtain your credentials."

Then Skinner hung up abruptly.

Mulder opened his email and printed out the recent homicide reports. Then he dug through his digital backup of the X-Files and located X-80391. Out of habit, he compared crime scene photos with one another first. The recent murders and those in the X-File matched, which meant Skinner was right. 

There was an X-File here in Portland.

 

Hank Griffin arrived at the parking lot of the Green Moon Motel, and Doctor Harper pulled up right after him.

"It's too early in the morning for dead bodies," Harper commented as she got out of her car.

"I hear that," Hank replied. 

Sergeant Franco waved them over to door one twenty-three.

"This is a bad one," Franco said. 

"Where's the body?" Hank asked.

"We don't have one."

"So you called me at four thirty and dragged me out of bed for no reason?" Harper asked.

"See for yourself," Franco said. 

He stepped aside and revealed two fingers (a ring finger and pinky) on the doorstep of room one twenty-three. Not ten feet away, there was an arm dismembered at the shoulder. Though it was covered in bite marks, the hand of that arm had all five fingers digging into the bumper of a black Acura. Part of a leg was impaled upon the car's antenna. It was also bitten, torn, and missing several toes.

"I got unis canvasing the area, and we got three cadaver dogs out looking for the rest of the remains," Franco said. "So far, nothing. The two officers that called it in are just over there."

Harper began her initial exam, and Hank went over to the officers Franco had pointed to.

"You two found the body?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. I'm Officer Rain McDuff, and this is my partner Officer Howard Jones."

"You happened upon this while on patrol?" Hank asked.

"No, we didn't," Jones replied. "Sergeant Wu asked for a designated driver for himself and someone he met at a bar. While we were here, dropping her and her car off, we noticed a lurker. She told us to leave him be, said he was harmless, so we went on our way. Few hours later, on our regular patrol, McDuff said we should check on her. We were a few blocks away, and we figured we could swing by and check on her, no big deal."

"When we pulled in, everything seemed fine," McDuff said. "The car was just as Jones left it, and the lurker was gone, but then we saw the leg, and the arm..."

"We called it in," Jones said. "We checked on the woman we dropped of earlier, she was unharmed but got pretty riled up."

"What do we know about her?" Hank asked.

"Her name is Annabel Wilder," she said. "We didn't talk much, to be honest."

"Right, well, get me your statement as soon as you can. We've got forensics coming in, so you're good to go."

That's when he caught sight of the Captain arriving. Only then did he realize that Nick hadn't shown up yet.

"Captain," Hank said as he approached. "Nick isn't here, yet, he... uh..."

"He's sick, and believe me, that's putting it mildly," Renard replied.

"He okay?"

"Not even close, but there's nothing we can do for him."

"Something tells me we need him on this case," Hank said. 

"I'll be filling in until he's back on his feet," Renard said. "That, and the last thing we need is a cop from another jurisdiction turning up dead on our watch."

"What cop?" Hank asked.

"Franco didn't tell you? The woman in this room, Annabel Wilder is a detective with Clark county PD," Renard replied. "What do we have?" 

"So far, a probable homicide," Hank replied. "Fingers, arm, and leg from an unknown victim. Haven't found the rest of him or her yet."

"All the same victim?"

Hank said, "Do you wanna weigh in on this, Harper?"

"From what I can see, I'd say these are all from the same person. The size of the fingers and the general physique of what we do have suggests a male," Harper replied. "I can't be sure until we test everything at the lab."

"Any guess on the cause of death?" Renard asked.

"I won't know that until I've got the rest of the body," she replied. "But baring any additional injuries, he probably died from blood loss."

"What about a weapon?" Hank asked. 

"I don't even have a guess right now," Harper replied.

"An attack dog," a woman said.

Hank began, "Ma'am, we - " 

"Detective Annabel Wilder," she interrupted. "I believe this vic was killed by the same perpetrator as my John Doe."

"Your John Doe?" Hank asked.

"Homicide victim found yesterday. He had been torn apart, and parts of his body had been eaten and vomited up, just like those fingers there," she replied.

"That would explain this viscous substance," Harper commented, holding up a cotton swab.

"Detective Wilder, I'm Captain Renard. Tell me something, if you have a homicide victim in Clark county, why are you in Portland?" Renard asked.

"My John Doe didn't have an ID in his wallet, but he did have the name and a Portland address on a scrap of paper," Wilder replied. "No phone number that I could find, but I figured this person might be able to ID him for us."

"Did you run fingerprints or dental records?" Renard asked.

"No hits on either."

"You got something, though," Hank said, sensing she was holding back.

"I told you I couldn't find a phone number, but the truth is, when I ran the person's information through the federal system, since she's out of state, the FBI called me and started to ask about the case. Didn't bother to explain why they cared so damn much."

"But now there's a body in another state," Renard said, cottoning on. "Which means the Feds could claim jurisdiction."

"They haven't yet," Wilder replied.

"Until the FBI actually files the paperwork, we'll be treating it as a joint Clark county-Portland PD case," Renard said.

"Deal," she said.

"So long as you to agree to protective custody," Renard added.

"I don't need protective custody."

"It's part of the deal."

"Fine."

"This person of interest, who is he?" Hank asked.

Wilder replied, "She, actually. Dana Scully, 1521 NE Prescott Street."

 

Nick woke up feeling thirsty, tired, and itchy. His entire body throbbed with pain, but it came and went. He tried to speak, but there were bandages over his mouth and lips as well as his eyes, and from what he could tell, he was strapped down.

He made a loud grunting sound. 

"Nick?" Juliette asked. "Don't try to speak yet. Hold on."

He felt the bandages on his face shift and then air hit his skin. The sensation made him gasp. His eyes snapped open. He was in the back room of the Spice Shop, and Juliette and Rosalee were standing over him.

"He's still burned," Juliette said to Rosalee.

"I'm burned?" Nick said, his voice hoarse.

"Drink this," Rosalee said, offering a straw. 

It was awkward, trying to drink water while lying down, but it made his throat feel better.

"I shouldn't've stopped, Rosalee. He's still burned."

"Minor, first-degree burns," Rosalee replied. "We can treat that with a basic salve."

"What?" Nick asked.

"Nick, don't move. We have to check the rest of your body to make sure the burns have healed," Juliette said.

"Maybe Juliette should do that?" Nick suggested, suddenly feeling very vulnerable.

"I'll be up front," Rosalee said. "If you need anything, just yell."

 

Sean Renard escorted Detective Wilder to the station so she could give her official statement. When she finished, Wilder helped him coordinated the joint investigation with Clark county. It was a little after ten by the time they finished, and soon after, Sergeant Wu burst into the room.

"Captain, we - Annabel?" Wu said, abruptly stopping mid-thought. "Sorry to interrupt."

"Sergeant Wu, this is Detective Annabel Wilder with Clark county PD," Renard said.

"I heard you were a cop, Drew," Wilder said. She quickly corrected herself, "Sergeant Wu."

"Ah, sorry to interrupt you and Detective Wilder, Captain, but I've got the FBI here waiting to see you," Wu said. 

"Send them in." 

Wu nodded and left.

"Seems like our joint investigation is over," Wilder said. "I can step out while - "

He interrupted, "No, It's good you're here. They'll be wanting to speak with you as well, I'm sure."

He pulled out the spare chair he kept tucked in the corner and put it along side his desk, offering it to her.

"How chivalrous," she said. 

A dark-haired white man came in, followed by a shorter woman with red hair. Renard vaguely recognized them, but he couldn't remember why. 

"Are you Captain Renard?" the man asked.

"Yes, and this is Detective Wilder with Clark county," he said. "You two are with the FBI?"

"Actually, it's just me. I'm Fox Mulder, Special Investigator," he said. "I've been assigned to assist you on this case."

Mulder flashed his credentials, and Renard noticed that the casing was brand new.

Renard asked, "You're not here to take over the case?"

"No, I'm here to assist in a joint investigation," Mulder repeated. "And this - "

The woman interrupted, "I'm Dana Scully, and while I'm no longer with the FBI, I investigated this case when the FBI handled it."

"Dana Scully, 1521 NE Prescott Street?" Wilder interjected.

"Yes," she replied.

"Any reason why a homicide victim would have your name and address in their wallet?" Wilder asked, holding out the evidence bag with the handwritten note in it.

"He had my address?" Scully asked. "How did he get it?"

"I think Detective Wilder is more interested in the fact that the man is dead," Renard said. "And the fact that you knew the victim was male without anyone having said so."

"We just moved to Portland a few weeks ago. My mother doesn't have this address yet," Scully explained. "As for knowing the sex of the victim, I assumed this was the male victim found in Washington."

"My John Doe," Wilder said.

"Actually, not anymore," Mulder said. "Scully identified your John Doe as Myron Stefaniuk. The Clark county coroner is working on confirming it, but he's working with half-digested fingerprints and dental records that are over a decade old, so it might be a while."

"So you knew the victim?" Wilder asked Scully.

"I met him during the original investigation," she replied. 

"You keep alluding to a previous case," Renard said. "Maybe we should start there." 

"In June of two thousand, there were five homicides in Burley, Idaho. Investigators were having trouble determining if the killer as human or animal," Mulder said. 

Scully added, "Myron Stefaniuk went into hiding after his brother Ernie was killed."

"From who?" Wilder asked.

"Not who, what," Mulder said.

Renard hesitated before he asked, "What do you think is killing people?"

Mulder handed Renard and old newspaper article, and Wilder stared at it over his shoulder. It had a picture of two people holding up a human-sized bat. The headline read "HUNTERS KILL HUMAN BAT!"

"You're serious?" Wilder asked. "You expect us to believe some hoax from nineteen fifty-six is killing people?"

"If you took time to read the article, you'd see that the one in the picture is dead," Mulder replied. "The coroner did an autopsy but couldn't determine if the creature was animal or human."

"Let me guess, before anyone else had the chance to run tests, the body mysteriously vanished," Wilder said sarcastically. 

"A day after the necropsy, the coroner was killed. In the days that followed, there were several other homicides, including one of the hunters," Scully replied. "The MO is the same as the recent murders. The surviving hunter, Ernie Stefaniuk, went into hiding with his wife, Ariel McKesson, a few days later. She died of natural causes in two thousand, and he returned her body to her family to be buried and that's how this predator caught his scent again. It killed five more people, including Ernie. Both I and my partner at the time, Agent Doggett, shot it multiple times, but it got away."

"If any of this is true, why isn't the FBI taking over?" Wilder asked. 

"She has a point. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is an open FBI case," Renard added. "Isn't it?"

"No, technically speaking the FBI has no official file and therefore no official case," Mulder replied. "If I can speak frankly, Scully and I used to work in a division called the X-Files, investigating crimes caused by or connected to unexplained phenomenon. Since our retirement, the FBI has closed the X-Files and redacted their content."

Scully continued, "What my partner is trying to say is that the FBI isn't taking over this case because the FBI doesn't want it."

"Why would the FBI redact and entire division?" Wilder asked.

"Officially, the FBI closed the X-Files because of financial restrictions and because many believed they were an embarrassment to the Bureau," Scully replied. "The truth is that our investigations uncovered government-sanctioned human experimentation and a conspiracy covering up these crimes. Eventually, the forces behind these crimes coerced our supporters to capitulate, and the FBI shut us down."

"That's quite a story," Wilder said.

The Captain's stomach had dropped several times during this particular conversation. He'd heard about the X-Files division, and as a young man, he kept an eye on those cases and the investigative techniques employed in solving them. He considered his words carefully. He needed to confirm the agents' identities and demonstrate his knowledge of the division without revealing his own personal interest.

"The X-Files," Renard repeated. "Isn't that the division that took down Pusher?" 

"You mean Robert Patrick Modell? Yes," Mulder replied.

"I make a habit of studying serial crimes," Renard lied. "I believe the X-Files was also responsible for arresting Samuel Aboah and Virgil Incanto, if I'm remembering correctly." 

Mulder nodded.

Renard turned to Wilder and said, "All three were complex serial cases that might've never gone to trial had they not accepted the... unique motives of the killers in question."

"Looks like we still have one supporter, Scully," Mulder said.

"I support good police work," Renard replied. "And if you believe that this is an animal rather than a man, I am inclined to believe you. What do you think it will take to stop it from killing again?"

"This is what we know so far," Mulder said. "This animal is as large as a man and highly motivated. It has exhibited a high level of intelligence and seems to target individuals out of revenge. The good news is that this thing only hunts at night, which means we've more than eight hours before we need to worry about any more bodies dropping."

"The bad news," Scully began, "is that this creature hunts by scent. Anyone who has physical contact with a target, even briefly, is in danger. We also know that when it kills, it may kill others nearby, especially if they are alone and interrupt it." 

"I don't understand," Wilder said. "You've said this thing went after the hunters who killed this other giant bat thing in nineteen fifty-six. According to you, it got the last hunter fifteen years ago, so why is it killing now?"

"During my investigation, Myron Stefaniuk, Agent Doggett, and I all impeded its revenge spree," Scully said. "That is why Myron went into hiding. He believed he was its next target, and he decided to escape while it recuperated from its wounds."

Exasperated, Wilder asked, "Isn't it possible that we're dealing with someone with an identity disorder? A man who thinks he's an animal or who desperately wants to be one. That kind of thing."

"I encountered this creature," Scully replied. "It attacked me and Agent Doggett. There is no doubt in my mind that it is an animal. It had traits only found in bats, including webbed membranes and other characteristics unique to mammalian flight."

"Animal's don't have the capacity to hold grudges or execute complex revenge plots," Wilder argued.

"That's not true. Many animals exhibit human-like intelligence and even complex, long-term reactions to negative stimuli," Mulder replied calmly. "Research has documented such behavior in crows. They have the ability to recognize faces and are known to hold grudges and act on them, sometimes years later." 

"We only have until nightfall. That doesn't give us time for debate," Scully said. After a moment, she added, "I don't mean to be abrupt, but I have reason to believe that I am a target. I didn't go to work today because anyone who comes into contact with me could be at risk. It's possible all three of you are at risk just for being in the same room as me."

A full minute of uncomfortable quiet passed.

Mulder broke the silence. "All four recent homicides share the same M.O. as the homicides in two thousand and nineteen fifty-six."

"Four homicides?" Renard repeated. 

Mulder pulled out a small map of the northwestern states. Four cities were marked with red ink: Burley, Idaho; Auburn, Washington; Ridgefield, Washington; and Portland, Oregon.

"The first murder occurred on Saturday. A man named Zack Tisale was torn apart inside his home in Burley, Idaho. We're still waiting on the full report. All they'd tell me on the phone was that there were no signs of a break in," Mulder said. "Before dawn on the next day, Michelle Winfield of Puyallup, Washington was murdered while on the phone with a nine-one-one operator. She called to report that a patient was in the process of stealing her car. She didn't have a chance to name the patient, but it must be someone she treated at Auburn Medical Center, since this happened in center's parking lot. Her body was found there less than three minutes after the start of her call. She was dismembered and missing an ear and three fingers."

Scully laid out the crime scene photos of Michelle Winfield's murder.

"This happened in two minutes?" Wilder asked. 

"Her ear was found under a car across the parking lot, regurgitated. Her fingers were found in a tree not far from the ear," Scully said dispassionately. 

"The third victim you already know," Mulder said. "John Doe, almost certainly Myron Stefaniuk, found dead off of I-5 in Ridgefield, Washington Sunday night."

"And the fourth victim was here in Portland," Wilder said. "But he's not like the others."

"So far we've only found fingers, an arm, and a leg," Renard said. "He died sometime between two and four in the morning."

"You haven't found the rest of his body?" Scully asked.

"Not yet," Wilder replied. "And the scene was completely different from the other homicide. It was... arranged. Like the killer wanted me to open my door to find fingers and an arm clinging to my car's bumper for dear life."

"It's likely that this creature is targeting you because of that," Mulder said, pointing to the evidence bag with Myron's note inside.

"I thought you said it's not human," Wilder protested.

"We did," Scully replied.

"Last I checked, even the smartest damned animals can't read."

"It's not about reading," Scully said. "I told you this thing hunts by scent. Myron kept this note on him, that would be more than enough for it to find you."

"Why would it follow the scent of a main it already murdered - meaning, me - to Portland?" Wilder asked.

Renard had another stomach-churning experience. Twice in one meeting... that never happened. He couldn't distract the other investigating parties and confirm his suspicions, so he had to get word to Hank and Monroe.

"Assuming it is seeking revenge on others, it's possible it simply following a familiar scent in hopes of picking up another," Renard suggested. 

Wilder asked, "What kind of sense does that make?"

"We've got four people dismembered, eaten, and regurgitated in three states in just three days," Renard replied. "I can't think of a scenario where that makes sense, but maybe if we fill in the gaps, connect our victims with more than just the MO of our killer, we might have a better idea of what's going on here."

"Do you have a room we can use?" Mulder asked. "This isn't the kind of thing I think we should put up on the boards in the bullpen."

"I agree," Renard said. "I'll be right back."

The Captain ducked out of his office and went straight to Sergeant Wu.

"Captain? How're the sketchy Feds?" Wu asked.

"That's a discussion for another time. I need you to get something to Hank. Tell him it's _wesen_ -related but Nick might not have any information on this, so you'll need Monroe or Rosalee," Renard said. "Give me your notepad."

Wu handed over his notebook and pen with a skeptical look. Renard quickly scribbled his idea without looking. 

"I didn't have time to make a copy of this newspaper article, but it has a photo that might help. Just make sure that the original copy gets back to my office, or it'll be missed," Renard said. He handed the notebook back to Wu and said, "Whatever you do, don't read this note out loud, and if you wind up handing it off to Hank, make sure you tell him the same. Do not say it out loud."

"Ohhh-kay. Cryptic. Not sure I like it. I'll drop it off right away. Do you need anything else, Captain?" Wu asked.

"Yeah, have Sergeant Franco set up whatever we've got free as a conference room. Don't worry about the size, just make sure it's private," Renard replied. "I'm going to keep the FBI and the Clark county Detective busy."

"Aye, aye Captain," Wu said before he left to find Franco.

 

Monroe was not having a good day.

First, Nick was burned from the inside out. That was bad news to get any day of the week, especially at eleven at night.

Then, Monroe missed sleeping and therefore his morning Pilates. Bad news and no mellowing-out routine made for one cranky Blutbad.

And now he was craving a nice, juicy steak.

His cell phone rang.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Monroe, it's Hank."

"Hank? What's going on?" 

"We got a homicide, and I can't find Nick. The Captain told me he was sick or something, but this is definitely related to _wesen_ , and I've got nothing to go on. The Captain said he'd fill in for Nick, but either he doesn't know any more than I do or he's not sharing," Hank said.

"Trust me, Nick isn't in any condition to help."

"I get that. That's why I'm calling you."

"Me?"

"You've helped Nick on cases before, right? I don't mean fact-finding and translating German."

"Yeah, I did," Monroe replied. "Sure why not?"

"As soon as you can, come to the Green Moon Motel. I've got to go."

"I will as soon as I tell Rosalee."

Hank hung up.

"Tell me what?" Rosalee asked.

Monroe jumped, startled by her voice. He hadn't seen her come in from the back room.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, just a little jumpy," he replied. "Hank asked me to help him out, since Nick is... well, you know. Will you be okay here if - "

She interrupted, "Yes. You should go."

"I should?" he asked.

"We all had a rough night, you especially."

"Me? Don't you mean Nick especially? He was the one that got roasted."

"You rbest friend was hurt, nearly killed. Last night, there were things for you to do, but now, all you can do is wait," she said. "I think you could use something to keep you busy, so go on. Go help Hank stop a bad guy."

Monroe wrapped Rosalee in a hug and kissed her on the cheek.

"Sometimes I forget you see right through me," he said.

"Rosalee!" Juliette shouted from the back room. "Rosalee! Help!"

"I got this," Rosalee said to Monroe before he could respond. "Be safe. I love you."

"Love you, too."

 

The vacant office that currently served the FBI-Clark-Portland joint investigation became silent after they received the official police reports, digital recordings, and autopsies for the first three victims. 

"Do we have a description of Michelle Winfield?" Mulder asked. 

Scully had been so focused on the crime scene photos that she nearly jumped in surprise at the sound of anything than her own thoughts echoing in her head.

"Uh, yeah," Wilder replied. "We have her driver's license photo and the photo from her hospital id."

"She a white female with brown-and-grey hair and dark eyes?" Mulder asked.

"That could describe most the women on the West Coast," Wilder replied. 

"Does she have a wide, white scar across the bridge of her nose?" he asked.

Scully knew that tone in his voice. She asked, "Did you find something?" 

"Look at that, Mulder, you're right. Take gander," she replied, enlarging the DMV photo on the computer. "Distinctive scar."

"According to Freddie Lourdes, Zack Tisdale spoke with a woman matching Winfield's description the afternoon of his death," Mulder said.

"Why'd they talk about?" Wilder asked.

"She asked Lourdes about his neighbor, Carl Reyes, saying he was the next-of-kin for a patient. Trouble was that Reyes had packed his truck and left Friday morning with his mom and girlfriend, so Lourdes assumed Winfield was up to no good, scoping houses to rob or something. He sent her away without even opening the door."

"It's a good thing," Scully said. "Keeping that door closed is probably the only reason Lourdes is still alive."

"So Winfield goes to find Carl Reyes, but he's not around. Tisdale tells her he's gone, so she drives back home," Wilder said.

"The patient must've been Myron Stefaniuk," Scully said.

"I checked. He wasn't registered at the Auburn Medical Center," Wilder replied.

Mulder said, "I ran all the patient names, checking for other possible victims. Two are unaccounted for: Sandra Newcomb and Michael Smith. Myron was in hiding, and Michael Smith sounds like an alias. We can confirm that with medical records."

"We'd need probably cause, and we don't have any," Scully said.

"But you could request to review his file as a doctor," Mulder suggested.

"It would be more efficient to ask the Clark county coroner to handle it, since he has the body. Give him the two missing patient names, and he can make a request to Auburn Medical," she replied. 

"Even if he confirms that, there's till no connection between our John Doe and the other three victims," Wilder said.

"We might have to consider the possibility that the connection is you," Scully said. 

"I get it. I carried the Myron-scented evidence here, and somehow that got John Doe killed," Wilder said. "The point I was trying to make was that the other three victims had actual contact with one another hours before their deaths. I didn't arrive in Portland until a full day after we found Stefaniuk."

"We won't know anything until we identify John Doe," Mulder said. 

Scully thought he was right, but that meant they were at a dead end. As Mulder and Wilder continued on about the connections, Scully's mind kept going over the two most recent homicides. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something was wrong about them.

 

Monroe parked his yellow super beetle on a side street and walked to the Green Moon Motel. Hank was waiting for him. 

"The remains were taken to the morgue," Hank said. "But everything else is as we found it."

He handed Monroe a large, digital camera. 

"You want me to take photos?" Monroe asked.

"Thought it'd be good for you to look like you have a reason to be here."

"That is so... thoughtful," Monroe replied. "Nick is terrible with cover stories. He usually just blurts the first lame thing that he thinks of."

"Come on," Hank said, leading him to the parking lot.

"Whoa, that's... definitely _wesen_ ," Monroe said before they could even seen the crime scene tape.

"You see something?" 

"I smell something. Strong something. A knock-you-on-your-ass strength something," he replied.

They continued to where the remains were found, and Monroe did his best to look busy. While he and Hank spoke, he took photos of the car, the motel, the parking lot, the officers, and even the random people who had stopped to gawk at the crime scene.

"Any idea what this person could've been?" Hank asked. 

"Smells mammalian," Monroe said. "But from what I see here, this guy could be anything with teeth and a bad temper."

"We had Cadaver dogs out here earlier, trying to find the rest of the body, but they turned up nothing," Hank said. "This guy took parts with him. Does that narrow the _wesen_ field?"

"Unfortunately, that's not a helpful distinction," Monroe replied. "I mean, for one thing, do we even know that the killer is the one who took the rest of the body? Maybe a Geier took it for the organs. Assuming they were in tact."

"A what now?" Hank asked.

"Never mind."

On the pretext of taking a close up of the Acura's bumper where the hand had been placed, Monroe leaned in and sniffed.

"You used dogs to search for the body?" 

"Yeah, no luck," Hank replied.

"There wouldn't be," Monroe said. "I thought that smell I picked up was from the remains. Don't get me wrong, the smell is from the same individual, but these aren't... potent enough. We must be downwind from something the killer wanted to cover up."

"Cover up?" Hank repeated. "I'm not following."

"Basically, some _wesen_ mark their territory to warn others," Monroe explained. "As an added bonus, it can confuse actual animals, like wolves or cougars or even trained dogs."

"So you're saying that this guy used his scent or whatever to hide the rest of the body from the dogs?" 

"Works better than slaked lime and frankincense," Monroe replied.

"Can you find it?" Hank asked.

"Follow me. I've got fake crime scene photos to take."

The scent had a definitive trail, so Monroe followed it to the back of the motel, where the smell became much stronger, only to become incredibly faint a few steps later. It was possible that the killer arrived in a car and parked behind the motel, as driving away reduced scent trails substantially.

But why did the trail suddenly get stronger? That didn't make any sense to Monroe until he realized that the trail was stronger because it had fewer odors to compete with.

"You got something?" Hank asked.

"It doesn't make much sense," Monroe warned. "The crime scene was downwind of something very pungent, but we're not anymore."

"You mean we're upwind of the body now?"

"Yeah, but we've gone, what, ten or twenty feet?" Monroe asked. "Whatever the crime scene is downwind from, this place is downwind from, too."

"This is the north side of the building," Hank said. "Any chance the wind is blowing north to south?"

"Sure, but that's my point - "

"The roof," Hank interrupted. 

They climbed three fire escapes to the top of the motel, which was flat, filthy, and, rank. Monroe nearly keeled over from the smell, which emanated from puddles of urine, dung piles, and vomit mounds. 

Blood was everywhere, and unlike the parking lot, there were clear signs of a struggle. The detective snapped on forensics gloves and bent down to examine a bloody footprint briefly before moving on to the remains. He checked the coat and found a small wallet.

"You found the primary crime scene, Monroe," Hank said calmly. "Normally I'd say that the vomit meant our killer couldn't stomach what he did, but I don't think that's what was happening here. The body is male and missing one arm, one leg, and two fingers. Definitely the same vic, and if this ID is his, which it seems like, then we got a name, Jason Schmitt."

Monroe couldn't reply; he couldn't even think. The scent was so strong that his stomach churned and his eyes watered. He did his best to plug his nose, but it wasn't enough. When he couldn't take it anymore, he scrambled back to the fire escape and down one flight of stairs.

Hank must've noticed he disappeared, because he came back to the edge of the roof to find him.

"Monroe? You all right?" Hank asked from above. 

"Yeah, but I can't go up there without a nose plug and some kind of mouth cover. That guy went out of his way to stop animal predation and any _wesen_ with nostrils from getting near that body."

Hank came down to joined him.

Hank joined him. He pulled out his notebook, ripped a page from it, and quickly drew something. 

"This guy left a four-taloned footprint. It looked like this," he said as he handed Monroe the paper. "You think you can figure out what kind of _wesen_ we're looking for from this print and the smell?"

"I don't know the name, but I know I've definitely smelled one of these before."

Loose pages fell out of Hank's notebook. "Oh, I almost forgot. Before you got here, Wu gave me a weird photocopy and a weirder note, both from the Captain. He said it was _wesen_ -related and that Nick might not be able to help us with it. I didn't have the time to look at it yet."

Monroe tried to look at the pages, but his eyes were still watering. "Rosalee will know. I should take all this back to the Spice Shop, where I might be able to breathe again." 

"Yeah, it's a good idea for you to go. I gotta call the body in."

 

Monroe returned to the Spice Shop just as the post-lunch hour rush died down. He told Rosalee about the crime scene before handing her the notes Hank gave him.

"Geflugelten Ritters," Rosalee said as soon as she unfolded them. "Newspaper photo makes that pretty clear."

"I knew I smelled that before!" Monroe said as his palm hit his forehead. "Geflugelten Ritters! How could I forget?"

She suddenly became stiff and still. 

"Rosalee?" he said. When she didn't response, he said, "Rosalee, what's wrong?"

"Turn the sign and lock the door," she replied.

"What's wrong?"

"Turn the sign and lock the door!"

He complied, though he became very tense.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Rosalee held up the note the Captain had written. As Monroe's mind registered what he saw, the air left his lungs. It was the three letters all _wesen_ knew and feared even more than Grimms: O.F.D.

This was the last thing he needed on a day without Pilates.

"This is bad," he said.

"Very, very bad."

"Bad."

He didn't know what to say, and from the looks of it, neither did she.

Then Juliette and Nick came in from the back room. He still had very red skin, but now it looked like a bad sunburn.

"Nick, you're all right!" Monroe said. "Which is really important now because we've got really bad news."

"Apparently it's just one of those days," Nick said, his voice still a little dry. "What is it?"

"Good news first. We know what _wesen_ you're up against: Geflugelten Ritters," Rosalee said.

"What do we know about them?" Nick asked.

"Uh..." Monroe began, but his mind was blank.

"I know they are a bat-like _wesen_ that look like this," she said as she handed the newspaper photo to Nick.

"This _wesen_ is dead," he said.

"So?" Juliette asked. 

"If a _wesen_ dies while _woged_ , they always _woge_ to their human form. It's like how the pupils dilate after death. It happens soon after and automatically," he explained. "But this guy didn't. We've seen this before. Is this another one of those hunters who skin _wesen_ for their pelt?"

"No, this isn't _sauver se peau_ ," Monroe said. "Don't get me wrong, that is nasty stuff, but today I'm talking a whole new level of holy-crap."

"Are you going to tell us what it is?" Juliette asked.

"We've got a note with it written down, but here's the thing - and especially for you now, Juliette - we do not say this out loud," Monroe said. 

"Why not?" she asked.

"It's a _pech wort_ , you know, a word that's bad luck to say," Monroe replied.

"It's a huge taboo in the _wesen_ community. People tried switching to the acronym, but the taboo spread to every term people used," Rosalee replied. "We were all raised believing that saying it out loud will somehow bring it upon ourselves. We've known for about a hundred years that that's not possible, but... it's like breaking a mirror." 

"Exactly. You know, why risk it?" Monroe added.

"Okay, but we need something to call it so we can talk about it," Nick said.

"My grandfather used to call it _ungezahmt_ ," Monroe suggested. "It means uncurbed or feral." 

"Feral? You mean like Holly Clark?" Nick asked.

"What? No! Holly is not feral!" Monroe said quickly.

Nick replied, "But she lived alone in the woods for nine years. She basically raised herself."

"She was **not** feral," Rosalee said. "She tapped into her _wesen_ side to survive in the wild. That's totally different."

"Completely different. Nick, when we say feral, which is a pretty accurate description, we're talking way out there, utterly untethered by humanity," Monroe said. "And there is no coming back from it, either."

Rosalee showed the note to Juliette and Nick. She explained, "These three letters are an acronym for an incredibly rare genetic disorder. The symptoms begin to show in young adulthood, slowly developing over time with physical and mental changes. Eventually, the _wesen_ essence becomes fixed, so the person can no longer _woge_. Mental deterioration varies, but usually, individuals adopt animalistic behaviors that reflect their _wesen_ heritage. Since it's genetic, it only happens in certain bloodlines, and even then, only after many generations of inter-marriage."

"She means in-breeding," Monroe said. "Like a long, long history of it."

"So this guy in the newspaper photo, everyone could see him like this?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, you can see how the problems kinda build up in this situation," Monroe said. 

"The Wesen Council has a problem with it because it can expose the greater _wesen_ community. Anyone who becomes feral and refuses to go into hiding is sentenced to death," Rosalee said.

"Then there's the whole issue of their remains," Monroe said. "No burial, no preservation, and absolutely no prodding or poking at the hands of _kehrseite_."

"This article said they did an autopsy in nineteen fifty-six," Nick said.

"It also says that the coroner who did the autopsy was murdered, and the body went missing," Juliette said. 

Rosalee added, "And someone probably destroyed the paperwork."

"But the bigger problem here is that a _wesen_ gone feral, especially one that's lost their humanity, is the most dangerous predator on the planet," Monroe said. "Going feral means they lost their conscience, empathy, socialization, that kind of thing, but they still have their intelligence."

Juliette asked, "You're saying this killer is a powerful bat the size of a person, with the intelligence of a human being, and the instincts and behavioral patterns of a wild predator."

"I'm pretty sure that's what they said," Nick agreed. 

"The good news is that this varies a lot from person to person and between species," Rosalee said. 

"You said this guy is a kind of bat _wesen_ ," Nick said. "Can he fly?"

Monroe considered this for a moment. "I know they can glide. Not sure about flying, but you must have something on them in the trailer."

"Good idea," Rosalee said.

"Is there anything you can make that can help us?" Nick asked. "Any kind of de-feralling mixture?"

"This isn't something I can treat. It's like Huntington's Disease," Rosalee replied. "Irreversibly progressive. Modern medicine may have treatments for it, but it's not even close to a cure." 

"What about anything that can slow or stop a Geflugelten Ritters?" Juliette asked. "Flying is a big advantage in a fight."

Rosalee replied, "I'll look through the books I have. There might be something."

"We should go to the trailer," Juliette said. "I'll bring the car around."

She went out through the back room.

"Nick, Juliette just spent twelve hours healing you," Monroe said. "No matter how powerful she is, she has limits, and neither of you have any idea what'll happen if she pushes those."

"She seems fine," he replied. "And besides, we're going to read in the trailer, not into battle."

"You should still warn her," Rosalee said. "She might feel fine until she tries to use her power again."

Nick said, "I know what happened last night freaked both of you out, and I don't want to sound ungrateful since you helped save my life. But please, don't blame her for what happened."

"Dude, she lit you on fire," Monroe said evenly.

"Not on purpose."

Monroe looked at Nick, then at Rosalee, not bothering to conceal his shock. His best friend and wife were both in denial, and neither one seemed to know it.

He said, "Not you, too, Nick. I'm not trying to convince you Juliette is a bad person, but she lit you on fire. She has the power of an incredibly potent adult Hexenbiest, but only a few months of actual experience living with it. Usually that kind of power grows over time and only with practice. Believe me when I say that lighting you on fire might actually be the least dangerous thing she could do."

"I hear what you're saying," Nick replied. "I mean it. I do, but it's not her fault."

"He's not talking about fault," Rosalee said. "Remember what Trubel was like when we first met her? She'd been a Grimm for years but had no idea."

"That's completely different - " Nick began.

Rosalee interrupted. "It's the same fundamental problem. You needed someone - like your aunt - to help you, and so did Trubel. You were the one that taught her where to start."

"And I'll help Juliette the same way."

"Dude, you can't do that as a Grimm," Monroe said. 

"He's right, you can't let her learn about Hexenbiests from what's written in your ancestor's books."

"Okay, I'll talk with her about this, but after we stop the giant man-bat that's currently tearing people apart across Portland," Nick said.

 

Officers Rain McDuff and Howard Jones made a habit of sharing a beer once a week and bonding for an hour or two. The rules were simple: no shop talk, no cop bars, and no cell phones. 

By the time they left, it was dusk, so McDuff insisted on driving Jones home. 

"I live less than a mile from here," Jones protested. "I can walk off that last beer."

"Right, you walk off that beer and get yourself hit by a car, and it'll be my ass, won't it?"

They had been driving for about two minutes when a loud THUMP came from the roof.

"What the hell?" McDuff said. 

"Probably just acorns or pinecones falling from the trees."

"Damn big acorns," McDuff replied.

That's when something large and hard smashed through the back window. McDuff swerved in surprise but kept the car on the road. 

"What the hell was that?"

"Pull over."

Before she could even think about it, there was a fierce smashing force that wailed on the passenger side of the car. The windows shattered, covering both of them with broken glass, and Jones screamed as sharp talons slashed at his chest, shredding the seatbelt. 

McDuff slammed on the breaks and came to a squealing halt. The sickening sound of bones breaking filled the air as Jones was dragged out of the car straight through the window. Whatever it was then threw him several car lengths ahead.

Then the world turned upside-down. She couldn't breathe because the seatbelt cut into her chest. McDuff fumbled with the button to unlock it. She wasn't prepared for the fall, and her head crashed into the steering wheel, disorienting her. 

She needed to get to Jones. Her personal car didn't have a radio, so she riffled through the debris in her car and found a cell phone - Jones's - and dialed the precinct's direct line. As it rang, she reached for the glove compartment to get her firearm. 

"Portland PD," someone answered.

"This is Officer Rain McDuff. Officers down. Require immediate assistance on Rootville Drive. My partner and I were attacked leaving the Swirly Pony Pub."

"We're dispatching units now."

McDuff finally turned herself right side up on the roof of her car. She was covered with cuts and broken glass, and Jones seemed much closer, probably because the car moved ahead when it was flipped. 

"Jones!" she yelled. "Jones, can you hear me?"

"McDuff!" he yelled back. "Run! Get the hell out of here! RUN!"

"Screw you!"

She popped the driver-side door open, but it wouldn't budge. She tried the passenger side door. It was blocked by the curb, but the entire window was gone. She took her coat and threw it over the broken glass as best she could and began to crawl out. 

"RUN! Get out of here McDuff!" he shouted.

Jones tried to stand, but his legs buckled. Eventually, he began crawling to the sidewalk.

McDuff made a point to face her partner so she could keep an eye on him. She was halfway out when the car suddenly groaned under a heavy weight. The doorframe crunched down, and McDuff screamed as the uncovered glass of the window sank into her back. 

When she tried to look behind herself to see what was on the car, the glass tore at her skin and she felt her blood spill out of her wounds, warming her skin. Slowly and carefully, she positioned herself so she could aim her gun.

Then she heard it. It was somewhere between a purr and a roar, and it escalated into a screech. 

It was right behind her.

"Get the hell out of here, McDuff!"

"I can't move!" she shouted back.

Sirens approached. Backup was near.

As if goaded by the cacophony, the assailant leapt off the car and circled Jones, just a little too far away to see. McDuff fired, and the recoil forced her to adjust before she could try again. She fired again and again. At one point, she must've hit whatever-the-hell-it was because it screeched again.

Her clip ran out, so she looked at Jones, giving him a hang-in-there look. When their eyes met, she saw how terrified he was.

"McDuff," he said quietly. "Close your eyes."

Then the monster descended on him. 

McDuff couldn't move, couldn't turn, couldn't look away. All she could do was watch as her partner was mauled and torn apart by a monster so hideous that she knew she must be dreaming.

"Wake up," she said to herself as she was spattered with Jones's blood. "Wake up, wake up, wake up..."

Finally, the sirens reached full pitch, and the flashing lights illuminated the wreckage. The creature stole one of Jones's arms and ran.

She kept repeating, "Wake up, wake up, wake up..."

 

Nick knew he was hiding from his problems. Before he and Juliette had a chance to discuss what happened last night, they overheard Rosalee and Monroe and immediately jumped in to help.

So for the past two hours, he looked through every book his ancestors had given him while pretending that he had a sunburn and therefore there was nothing amiss between him and his girlfriend.

From the way she'd been acting, it seemed Juliette had taken the same tact. 

"Here it is," Juliette said. "It has been translated a bit. This entire page is just what they're called by Grimms in various languages. The Grimms called them Lunatic Boogeys."

Monroe and Nick stared at the page over her shoulder.

"Lunatic Boogey?" Monroe repeated. "Probably a bad translation."

Juliette flipped to the next page, "Hang on, this looks like an entry on them, but they're called Fetzig der albtraum. The rest is in English."

"That means 'insane nightmare.' Now that's descriptive," Monroe commented. Then he added, "Maybe we shouldn't all be trying to read this at the same time. What with this being a kind of claustrophobic topic to begin with."

"Would you mind reading out loud?" Nick asked Juliette.

"Of course."

Nick nodded and sat down on the other side of the desk, and Monroe took the love seat.

She read out loud from the book:

> FETZIG DER ALBTRAUM   
> On Insane Nightmares
> 
> Insane Nightmares are _wesen_ who, for one reason or another, can no longer _woge_. As those who came before me, I assumed such a thing was inflicted upon _wesen_ by someone with considerable power, perhaps a Zauberbiest or Hexenbiest. _Wesen_ in this state become monstrosities for all to see, both alive and dead, and they are reduced to their most bestial state, savaging humans and animals alike for no reason other than their monstrous whims and appetites.
> 
> Regardless of the species, these Insane Nightmares consume the flesh of anyone and anything and take no care to hide their crimes. For this reason, I no longer consider them _wesen_ (who are in some respects - no matter how few - undeniably human) but animals with nothing more than vestigial elements of their former humanity.
> 
> My most recent trip to the Swiss and Italian Alps have made me question our fundamental assumptions of those afflicted. Upon word of savage maulings and dismemberments of both man and beast, I hired a guide to lead me into the most ruthless and treacherous parts of the mountains where I discovered two separate settlements of Insane Nightmares.
> 
> There was a family of Coyotls, consisting of six individuals, of which four were afflicted. A separate group of seven afflicted Phansigar, possibly related to one another, lived on the next mountain. 
> 
> I captured one of the unaffected Coyotls. She told me that those afflicted were all members of her family, and they had settled in the mountains to isolate themselves. She insisted, as anyone would expect, that the recent attacks were all the work of the Phansigar, who recently came to the mountains for reasons unknown. Though she swore that her family members were sound of mind and meant no harm to others, I could not ignore my prior dealings with Coyotl packs. They have always been a vicious _wesen_ species, so surely those with the Nightmare upon them must be worse. I beheaded my captive after she identified all modes of egress to their dwelling. That was all I needed to know to behead rest of the Coyotls.
> 
> As for the Phansigar, despite my use of bolts with the most potent poison at my disposal, I only succeeded at beheading three before being forced to retreat. Those remaining somehow tracked us, raiding our camp at night and killing my guide, his assistant, and all our mules. I escaped and continued down the mountain for two days without stopping for food or rest. Though I know nothing followed me, I am certain they are hunting me. There have been murders in every town I have taken refuge in, all of which have been associates with whom I met recently. I have not yet figured out how these monsters continue track and find me or why they do this without attacking me directly. 
> 
> I believe they are punishing me for killing their three companions, but as each one has the Nightmare, it is entirely possible that they no longer have the ability to ascribe reason or purpose to their actions. I have called for assistance in their dispatch, which I hope will end their ravenous murders permanently.
> 
> The fact that these _wesen_ lived together in what could be described as a family without killing one another suggests that they are capable of forming bonds. Perhaps this is not an affliction from a sorcerer but instead a punishment from God, forcing the most beastly _wesen_ to suffer a loss of humanity. If I do not survive this last act, I should hope that other Grimms will continue in this work, ridding the earth of this scourge forever within my generation.
> 
> Silvana Grimm.

 

Monroe released a deep breath and gasped for air.

"Were you holding your breath that whole time?" Nick asked.

"Maybe I was," Monroe replied. "You would, too, trust me." 

"I'll say it, some of my ancestors were pricks," Nick said. "Did Silvana write any more entries after this?"

"She did," Juliette said as she turned the pages. "They killed the four Nightmare-Phansigar by setting up in a stronghold with a funneling point, and when the _wesen_ passed through it, they... dropped molten fire on them."

"Not exactly standard police practice, but maybe we can convince the Captain to set up a similar scenario," Nick suggested. "We lure them somewhere, confirm they are Insane Nightmares, and attack. Otherwise we can arrest them."

"Dude, that picture showed a _wesen_ still _woged_ like a day after its death!" Monroe protested.

"From a newspaper sixty years ago," Nick replied. "Maybe he was shot with that stuff that keeps you _woged_ after death. We've got no way to know. Unlike Silvana Grimm here, I'd like to know this guy is the threat we think he is before we kill him."

"Well, then you should read this," Monroe said as he held out one of the first books he'd look through. "I marked the page for Geflugelten Ritters."

"Good thinking," Nick said as he took the book.

Nick read out loud, "Geflugelten Ritters, or 'winged knights,' are known for their prowess in battle as well as their chivalry. Their skin is so thick that they need no armor to protect from arrows, swords, or daggers. They have proven themselves resistant to all forms of poison, venom, and contagion. Those who fall prey to their bites will continue to bleed until the wound is cauterized."

Juliette said, "That's true of carnivorous bats, like the Vampire Bat. Their saliva contains anticoagulants, so when they bite their prey, the bleeding doesn't stop."

"Difference is, vampire bats are parasites," Monroe said. "They feed from other animals, usually while they're asleep."

"And they don't kill their prey," Juliette said. 

"So these guys aren't giant vampire bats, good to know," Nick said. He continued reading, "This - meaning the fact that their bites don't stop bleeding - is especially unfortunate, as thrusting a sharp dagger or blade up into the mouth of a Geflugelten Ritters is the most proficient way to kill one, especially when _woged_. To this end, I have ordered the creation of the Hidden Blade Gauntlet that protects against their vicious bite and provides a penetrating blade that pierces the soft palate and punctures the brain. 

"The known weak spots of the Geflugelten Ritters include the aforementioned soft palate, the eyes, and the ears. It is possible to ground them by tearing or slashing the webbed membranes that enable them to glide and fly. If you do not have a dead shot archer at your call, the Hidden Blade Gauntlet may be your only chance to kill this particular _wesen_. R. G. Grimm."

"So, basically, even if this guy isn't feral, he's still pretty badass," Monroe said. 

Nick went to the weapons cabinet and dug up the gauntlets. "I think they're what the book was talking about," he said. 

He pushed on something and a blade exploded from above the knuckles.

"Spring-laoded like the vambrace," Nick said. "Pretty cool."

"Nick, in order to use that, you've gotta be close enough to put your fist in his mouth," Juliette said. 

"I wouldn't want to get that close to a giant bat," Monroe commented.

"Let's call it plan b," Nick said as he tried them on. 

Monroe's phone rang.

"Monroe... What? Hold on, I'm giving you to Nick. Yeah, he's better. Here."

Nick took the phone from Monroe and said, "Hello?"

"Nick," Hank said. "You feeling better?"

"Much better," he replied. "What's up?"

"We got another crime scene."

"And you called Monroe?"

"The Captain told me you were out of commission, and I needed a second pair of eyes. Or nostrils."

Nick replied, "I need to get changed. Tell you what, text my phone the address, and I'll meet you there as soon as possible."

 

Nick arrived at the crime scene about half an hour later.

"Nick, you look like hell, what happened?" Wu asked.

"Fell asleep sunbathing."

"You fell asleep sunbathing in Portland?" 

"Yep."

"In March?"

"So, what do we got?" Nick asked, changing the subject.

"I would say this was a bad one, but that doesn't really cover it. Officer Howard Jones, ripped apart in front of his partner, Officer Rain McDuff," Wu said. "And, to give you a head's up, the FBI has sent a special investigator to help on this case. That's the tall guy over there with Hank. The Captain sent me to keep an eye on him."

"Thanks Wu," Nick said. 

He walked over to Hank and the tall guy.

"Nick, you're - what the hell happened to you?" Hank asked as he caught sight of him.

"Don't ask," he replied. "Who is this?"

"Fox Mulder, I'm a special investigator for the FBI," he said. "You're Detective Griffin's partner?"

"Detective Burkhardt," Nick replied. "Do we know what happened here?"

"Officer McDuff said they were driving when something landed on the car. Whatever it was smashed the passenger side up, broke the window, then pulled Jones straight through the window. Then it flipped the car. She said the monster - her word, not mine - pinned her under her own car, then went after Jones. She said it was like it wanted her to watch it kill her partner," Hank said.

"We have any indication that she's right?" Nick asked.

"You mean, did a wild and violent animal exhibit what can only be described as human sadism?" Mulder asked.

"Cats torture their prey," Nick replied defensively. "It's not impossible."

"We don't know," Hank said. "But the evidence shows she was trapped, pinned down under her car. My guess is, if it wanted her dead, she would be."

"Unless it was interrupted," Nick suggested.

"The responding officers didn't see it," Hank replied.

"But she also said it ran off as soon as the flashing lights got close," Mulder replied.

"It ran off with Jones's left arm," Hank added.

"We have any idea why?" 

"Snack?" Hank suggested. 

"Whatever its reasons, we need to isolate the survivor, Officer McDuff," Mulder said. "Anyone who has come in either physical contact or close proximity to her could be this thing next meal."

"How's that?" Nick asked.

"According to my partner, this thing hunts by scent, and its sense of smell is sensitive enough to pick up on a trace aroma," Mulder replied. "We think it followed the detective from Clark county to Portland because she had a note that one of the victims had been carrying in his wallet."

Nick glanced at Hank, confused. Why was there a detective from Clark county on this case? Hank nodded, as if to say he'd fill him in later.

"Then we need to figure out who this thing really wants to kill," Nick said. "And then find anyone they've had contact with recently, get them into protective custody."

"We haven't had much luck on that," Mulder said.

Then Nick realized something. "You said this detective had a note?"

"Yeah."

"What was on it? I mean, she considered it evidence, so I'm guessing it was important."

"It had a name and address here in Portland." 

"Do we know who?" Nick asked.

"My partner, Dana Scully. That's why she's at the precinct."

He turned to Hank and said, "You mind handling things here? I'd like to speak with this woman."

"No problem," Hank said. "You know you look like hell, right?"

Nick replied, "That's what everyone keeps telling me."

 

Nick knocked before he stepped into the office Renard had directed him to. There was only one person inside.

"Sorry, are you Dana Scully?" he asked.

"Yes, who are you?"

"I'm Detective Burkhardt, Nick," he replied. "I'm Hank Griffin's partner. I wanted to talk with you. Sorry, but the Captain told me someone else would be here."

"Detective Wilder," Scully replied. "She stepped out to update her boss and call her family."

Nick's train of thought was derailed when he saw the crime boards they set up. One of them traced the connections between victims with string and a detailed timeline.

"Do we know why he only kills at night?" he asked.

"It hunts at night," she replied. "Probably because it sleeps during the day."

"This last victim, the one here in Portland, Jason Schmitt, aka Sly Jay," Nick said. "It says here that he had contact with the third victim, Myron Stefaniuk, but how can that be? He was dead for over a day before Schmitt got killed."

"Wilder told us Sly Jay was sitting outside the motel last night. She gave him twenty dollars to keep an eye out for her," she replied. "She brought something she took off of Myron's remains. We think that's why it followed her here."

"That's not it," Nick said. 

"You seem certain."

"Look, whatever this is, it's way too smart to think that a man it ripped apart yesterday was traveling to Portland," he said. "If it was following the scent, wouldn't it have targeted anyone who came into contain with the remains? The responding officers that found the body, the coroner, forensics. You'd have a lot of other names up here if that's what this thing was doing."

He could tell that what he said intrigued her, but her expression remained otherwise unreadable. 

"I admit, that has bothered me as well," she said. "That, and there has been a changed in MO since it arrived in Portland. At first I thought it might just be that one scene, but my partner called and told me that the same thing happened tonight."

"What do you mean?"

"Usually this thing finds you and kills you," she said. "But when it came to Portland, it started exhibiting signs of sadism: arranging body parts outside someone's door, forcing one victim to watch the other die. And..."

"And?" he prompted when she didn't continue.

"I was looking into the second victim's stolen car," she said. "The police found it in Ridgefield, Washington, less than a mile from where they found Stefaniuk's body."

"Because he stole her car."

"Yes, but they didn't connect the abandoned car to Stefaniuk until I called asking about it," she replied. "They assumed the owner had gone to get someone to tow it because all four tires had gone flat."

"Somebody tampered with them?" 

"Someone punctured very small holes, imperceptible to the eye, and put rocks under the cap. It's apparently a fairly common prank," she said. "There was no way to know anything had been done to them, and they deflated as he drove. He could've driven for several miles before the tires stopped him. He had a full tank of gas, so it's likely someone got to his car at the gas station, which the police are still canvasing for."

"So what you're saying is, before this killer came to Portland, he tampered with the tires of somebody's car to strand him in the middle of nowhere?" Nick asked. "You're going to think I'm crazy - "

"Trust me, I won't," she interjected.

"What if this thing, as you keep calling it, isn't a creature, but a man?" he asked.

"I've seen it in person, it's not human."

"Just... bare with me, here. If this thing was human, then that would give it an alternative motive to come to Portland."

"How's that?"

"It read your name and address off that note," Nick replied. 

"Not all people can read," she said. 

"If we assume this is a man," Nick said. "Then here's what we have. He's killed four people, three of whom had some connection to this man, Myron Stefaniuk. Not only did this guy have your name and address, he also stole a car and drove south, pretty obvious where he was headed. He could've gotten to Portland in less than three hours if he'd taken I-5, so why was he still in Washington? My guess is he didn't want the police to find him in a stolen car, so he avoided the main roads. That'd easily quadruple his drive time. Our killer probably stalked him, or somehow managed to follow him. Once he gets the chance, he messes with Stefaniuk's tires, guaranteeing he'd be on the road when they failed. Since he was taking back roads, the likelihood of anyone finding him would be pretty small."

"I don't see your point," Scully said.

"Our killer didn't need to do any of this," Nick replied. "I just came from a crime scene where this guy ripped someone out of a moving car before he flipped it over. Even if he only hunts at night, he could've just grabbed Stefaniuk when it got dark. Instead, he makes it so the vic winds up stranded, my guess right after it got dark. If Stefaniuk knew what you do, which I'm guessing he did since the timeline shows he was hiding from this thing for the last fifteen years, he'd be terrified. Maybe he even ran from the car in a desperate attempt to find cover before the monster found him. Our guy didn't just isolate Stefaniuk. He terrorized him."

"I also came to the conclusion that Stefaniuk's death was radically more violent than the other victims," she said. "The trouble is, I can't prove it. The evidence was corrupted by its saliva and stomach acid."

"What did you see?"

"It's hard to tell from the photos, but look at all the blood in this picture and then look at the fingers," she said. "Unlike the other victims, there are many smaller pools of blood near the hands."

"All his fingers were bitten off before he was killed?" Nick asked.

"That would explain why his fingers bled more than the other victims," she said. "The creature immobilized him, then bit off his fingers. All of them, also unlike the other victims. Detective Burkhardt - "

"Nick."

"Nick," she continued. "I don't think this is a man, but I accepted that it had a high level of intelligence when I first encountered it."

"Never mind, we can talk about that later. If we see this thing as a creature or monster, then his last victim is dead. He's done. But if we see him as a man, he takes out Myron's wallet and sees your name and address, and as you said you've encountered this guy before, that means he encountered you. Maybe he recognized your name. And now he has your address."

"That doesn't explain the murder of Sly Jay or the attack on the two officers."

"Humor me," Nick said. "If he were human, we'd call him a spree killer, right?"

"Spree killers are known to escalate their crimes."

"But this isn't just an escalation," Nick said. "Stefaniuk's murder would qualify, but you said that the MO is different for Sly Jay and Officer Jones. I agree. The arranged body parts in front of someone's door, the victim pinned under the car? That says this killer is thinking about an audience, which I don't think he was during these other three murders. That's not just escalation. That's a radical change."

"So what are you suggesting?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said truthfully. "Just trying to figure it out. What would cause someone to radically change MO?"

"What about a partner?" she suggested. "The coroner in Clark county said initially that Myron's body had two distinctive bite mark patterns, but he couldn't confirm it because by the time he got it to the morgue and was ready to do a casting, the patterns had been corrupted by the saliva."

"You never met Sly Jay or the officers?"

"No."

"Do we know anyone who had contact with Sly Jay and either Jones or McDuff?"

"Detective Wilder," Scully replied. "You think it's going after her? I thought you believed the killer was targeting me."

"What if the partner didn't just affect the MO, but is also choosing his own victims?"

"We don't have any real reason to believe there is a partner - " 

"I think we do," Nick said. "I understand why you dismissed the bite marks before, but I don't think we should. I think there are two of these things."

"Didn't you think it was a person a few seconds ago?"

"Agent Scully - "

"It's Doctor Scully, I'm not with the FBI anymore."

"Doctor Scully, these are giant bats, but sometimes putting things in different perspective is the only way to see something," Nick lied. Then he said, "I need to find Detective Wilder and figure out who else had contact with her since she came to Portland. And we'll need the same list from you."

 

Sean Renard was rarely baffled by _wesen_. While he didn't know every species, every proclivity, and every special power, _wesen_ almost always followed predictable patterns. 

In the past three hours, they uncovered two additional murders, both staff members at The Burger Bar that had contact with Detective Wilder. Like Officer Jones, both had body parts taken from the scene. Harry Phelan, a bus boy, was missing his right leg, and Felicia Crowell, a waiter, was missing her head. Fox Mulder discovered these body parts, as well as Officer Jones's arm, outside his house when he went home to check on his dog. 

None of it made sense to Renard, even when he factored in the chilling aspect of _wesen_ going feral.

He had gotten Wu, Wilder, Scully, and Mulder to stay in the precinct for the night, but he wasn't able to convince Nasir Sims, the bartender, to agree to any more than officers in a unit outside his home.

Nick and Hank came into his office.

"Captain, we got a plan," Hank said.

"But it's not by the book," Nick said.

"I'll take it."

"We don't have definitive evidence, but I'm convinced there are two of these things out there," Nick said. "One that is interested in killing Scully, the other Wilder."

"Trouble is, even if they weren't... whatever genetic problem they got," Hank said, "they're damn hard to put down."

"So I've heard."

"And according to Rosalee, we can't leave their bodies," Nick said. 

"No, we can't."

"So we need to get them trapped together. We might need to trap one to attract the other. We can do this, but we're gonna need some things that are hard to come by."

"And we also need a location," Hank said. "We were thinking a small valley with cliffs on three sides."

"I don't know about a valley, but there's a place I know of that qualifies. Cora Canyon. It's not really a canyon, but it has water on one side and cliffs around it except for a narrow passage. It's only about two hundred square feet."

"Sounds good," Hank said.

"Whatever you need, I'll find a way to get it," Renard said. "How do you plan on luring them?"

"We were going to ask Wu," Hank said. "He's had contact with both Scully and Wilder."

"If you put him in that canyon, he won't stand a chance," Renard said. "I've spent most of the day with both of them. I'll have better luck attracting these things and be able to defend myself if I have to."

"Are you sure?" Nick asked.

Renard nodded, yes.

"It's ten o'clock now," Hank said. "We think we can pull of this plan tonight?"

"If we can get everything we need, I say we try," Nick said. 

Renard nodded yes. He asked, "So, what do we need?"

 

Mulder knew something was going on when Detective Griffin and Detective Burkhardt met with the Captain. He kept a wary eye on Renard, so when he left, presumably to go home for the night, Mulder followed him.

Scully stopped him and purposely held him up long enough for Renard to pull out of the parking lot. 

"Scully, they are up to something," he said. 

"And you want to know what?"

"I want to help."

"So do I, but you and I are both targets. You can't just go wandering off."

"You think they can handle this thing?" Mulder asked. 

"They seem more open to the idea that this could be a highly intelligent animal than any other investigators I've met," she replied.

"That doesn't mean they don't need our help."

"Then I guess it's a good thing that I overheard Detective Griffin talking to someone about the setting up a perimeter around Cora Canyon, making sure no one is there tonight and people stay out till tomorrow morning."

"Scully, do we have a map?"

 

Monroe had always wanted to drive a fire truck, but he never thought it would be Nick that asked him to do it.

Rosalee wouldn't let him go alone, so she agreed to drive the second fire truck. It was a little strange, but he knew one day it would be a romantic story, so long as he left out everything after driving the fire trucks.

Nick showed them where to park. Soon Bud Wurstner parked a third fire truck, and he, Hank, and Juliette joined them.

Juliette asked, "Does everyone have their night vision goggles?"

Everybody donned their special headgear and promptly turned out their flashlights, as they caused the lenses to bloom out. 

"Good. Listen, the Captain is going to be here in about ten minutes. He's parked his car outside the canyon and walking in as we speak. Do you all know what to do?" Nick asked.

"Right, uh, sure," Bud said. "But, Nick... it's almost five in the morning. Are we... I mean, do we have time? Before the sun comes up. They only hunt at night, right?"

Monroe took a deep breath. His heartbeat quickened, and his eyes glowed red.

"One of them is here," he said. 

"Oh God!" Bud yelled. "What do we do? What do we do?!"

"Don't panic," Nick said. "Just be ready."

 

Nick set up rock climbing equipment to repel down the steep edges of Cora Canyon. They were just tall enough to be difficult to climb, which gave them great visibility from above.

By the time he got there, Renard had already entered the canyon, running.

"Captain!" Nick said. 

"One was definitely following me," Renard said, winded.

"Don't wait around, climb up," Nick said. "We don't want your trail to lead out of this canyon."

Renard nodded, and Nick ran out to meet the creature before it could get to close to its quarry. He wondered if it would know he was a Grimm or care for that matter.

He heard it before he saw it. It made a kind of rustling noise as it moved, probably from the webbing. 

Nick took a deep breath to calm himself. Last night he had almost been burned alive, so how bad could a giant bat be?

It screeched as it approached. Nick took his kanabo out of his pack and tossed the bag out of sight. He swung the kanabo and landed a strong hit to its torso, throwing it sideways to the ground. 

It retaliated with a quick punch from both its arms, throwing Nick towards the water. It descended on him in pure fury, snarling and ready to rip him limb from limb.

He cracked it on the head. The hit was strong enough to stun it, and Nick returned to his feet and ran toward his pack.

This time it pounced on him, pushing him face-first to the ground. It overshot its jump, however, and its momentum carried it past Nick. The Grimm got to his feet, shaking from the blow, and it glowered at him before it charged him down.

Then there was a snapping sound followed by a horrifying screech. The creature continued to scream, fighting against the giant bear trap that had caught its leg. It tried to fly, but the trap had a chain anchored under the rocks.

Nick saw the second bear trap fly through the air before it snapped hard on its shoulder. The giant bat was lopsided, the trap forcing it to lie on its side as it wriggled for freedom. 

Juliette wrapped the chain from the second trap to the tethered chain before going to Nick.

"You were supposed to stay up on the cliff," he protested.

"You needed help," she replied. "You were never going to get it to step on a trap. You needed someone here to throw them and you know it. Besides, these would never have pierced its skin without a little help."

Nick bit his lip, but she was right. He watched her for a moment as she looked dispassionately at the feral _wesen_ struggling in bear traps, crying out in anger and pain. Part of him wondered if she enjoyed inflicting its injuries now that she was a Hexenbiest, or if she was just trying to hide her reaction.

"We'd better go," she said, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"What?" 

"We're still following the plan aren't we?"

"Right," Nick said. "We got to get up the cliff."

His phone rang.

"What's up Monroe?"

"Dude, the other one is here," he said. "I mean right outside the canyon."

He hung up and turned to Juliette. "Change of plans," he said. 

Then he grabbed her hand and ran for the far cliff. 

"What are we doing?" she asked. "We can't stay here!"

"If we have to, we jump into the water."

As they made it to the cliff, the second creature swooped it, heading straight for Juliette.

Then a jet of water from one of the fire trucks hit it, knocking it off course. He could hear Monroe cheer Rosalee on.

"Nick, we gotta go," Juliette said. "If we run along the edges of the canyon, Bud, Monroe, and Rosalee can stop it from getting to us."

He nodded, and this time, she took his hand and ran, following the cliffs as she said. As predicted, it came for them again, but each time it came close, it was hit with another blast from one of the three fire trucks spread out above them on the cliffs." 

As they neared the passage, he pulled out his phone and called Monroe.

"Don't worry buddy, we got you," Monroe said before he could speak. "Bud's got pretty good aim for an Eisbiber."

"You need to do it as soon as we get to the passage," Nick said. 

"What? No way - "

"Monroe, there's no time to argue. This is our only chance!" Nick yelled before he hung up.

They were only a few feet from the passage when it attacked again, knocking Nick to the ground before Monroe was able to hit it. The Grimm desperately hoped that Monroe had given the signal, because moments later, they disappeared into the passage.

 

Hank and Renard were both armed and waiting for the signal. 

"Do I want to know how you got these things in less than four hours in the dead of night?" Hank asked. 

"Let's just say, a collector owed me a favor," Renard replied. 

Hank shouldered the Wasp 58, envious of the Captain's SMAW, which was larger and more powerful. He cleared his head and focused on the task at hand, following the second attacker with the sight, ready to fire. 

"Go now!" Renard said as the creature was hit with another blast of water.

Hank fired. At the last second, the creature dodged, but the missile hit the rock next to it. The explosion threw the predator towards the center of the canyon, near where its trapped counterpart was chained down.

Immediately, Renard fired the SMAW. Thanks to the chained bear traps, he didn't miss his target. 

They both reloaded and waited for the smoke to clear, but Hank could tell they were both dead. SAWM stood for Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon, and it was used to bust open bunkers and take down tanks. Even if these _wesen_ had skin like a medieval knight's armor, they would both be blown apart.

Bud used the hose to put out the superficial fires that were around the canyon, and Renard took the missile launchers and began to pack them.

Monroe, Bud, and Rosalee came and peeked over the edge from Hank's vantage point.

"I'd say they're dead," Rosalee said. 

"Yep," Monroe added. 

"Thanks for your help," Hanks said.

"So what's our next step?" Bud asked. "Do we cave in the canyon? Or block the pssage?"

"Actually, your next step is taking the fire trucks back," Hank said. "Nick, Juliette, the Captain, and I got the rest of this."

"You sure?" Bud said.

"Yeah, you all did great." 

They left, and the fire trucks pulled out.

"I loaded the artillery in your car," Renard said. 

"You mind dropping it off?" Hank asked.

"What about clean up?" 

"I can do that," Hank said. "If you don't mind me driving your car. We can swap back tomorrow... or, today I guess, at the station."

Renard handed Hank his car keys. "The biohazard buckets that Juliette got us are in the back. There are tarps on the backseat."

"Got it."

"And Hank... don't scratch the paint."

With that, Hank took down the rock climbing equipment Nick had set up and began walking the long way down. He wasn't in a rush to collect feral _wesen_ remains.

 

The explosion had scattered the remains, but most of the fragments were relatively large, making collection fairly straightforward, even in the dark with night vision goggles.

"Is someone else coming out here later?" Juliette asked. "What if we miss something?"

"The Captain has a cover story which should keep people away for a day or two," Nick said. "Do you think they knew?"

"What?"

"If what Rosalee says is true, these two creatures used to be ordinary _wesen_. Then they slowly became deformed and lost their minds," Nick said. "Do you think they knew, when they died, that they used to be like us? Did they remember?"

"Rosalee said the effects vary between species," Juliette said. "I don't know what they felt or how they lived, but when I was close enough to look, I could tell. Maybe some _wesen_ do lose their minds as when they go feral, but these two didn't, Nick. They wanted to terrorize people and kill them, and whatever their reasons were just weren't good enough."

Honking alerted them to a car's approach. They took off their night vision goggles so the headlights from the SUV didn't hurt their eyes. 

"Hank?" Nick said as he pulled up. "I thought the Captain was handling this."

"I asked him to return the heavy artillery instead," Hank said. 

"Do you have the bins?" Juliette asked. 

"Yeah, in the trunk."

"Once we pack these, all we have to do is drop them off at veterinary biohazard disposal," Juliette said. 

They donned their night vision goggles again and filled the disposal bins with the charred remains.

"We should do one more sweep before dawn," Nick suggested.

They split up and combed the area one last time. 

Nick was carrying a charred ear back to the bucket when he heard Hank scream. 

"Hank?" he said. "Hank!"

He grabbed his kanabo, throwing the ear in the bin as he scanned the canyon for Hank.

Juliette roared, and Nick saw Hank on the ground near her feet. Something was attacking them.

He ran, nearly tripping over Hank as he closed in. 

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, but it smashed my goggles," Hank said. 

"Stay low," Nick said as he caught sight of the assailant.

It was another feral Geflugelten Ritters, but unlike the others, it kept to the face of the cliffs, hanging off at an angle or upside down. It would leap, glide, and latch on again, and it was patient. It dodged anything thrown at it and waited until there was an optimal strike. Like it did to Hank, it slashed at Juliette's night vision goggles and knocked her to the ground.

"Get Hank out of here!" Nick said to her. "There may be more goggles in the car!"

This one was far more tactical than the others, so Nick gave it an opening. He clubbed at it when it moved and faked losing his balance. It worked; the creature swooped in to take out his goggles. Nick brought the kanabo across its chest, snagging the webbed membrane on its right side, tearing clean through.

The screech it made was deafening. 

It retaliated with incredible force, crashing him to the ground so hard that his kanabo went flying. 

It knocked off his goggles first and then slashed at his chest, ripping straight through his Kevlar and scratching his skin. It was a superficial cut, thanks to the Kevlar, but his skin burns made the pain radiate. 

Suddenly, bright lights forced him to wince. 

POP-BANG! POP-BANG! 

Two shooters fired almost in sync, concentrating their shots on the creature's chest. They fired six times, forcing the creature away from Nick.

He rolled over and picked up his kanabo as the creature leapt at its new assailants. 

Nick froze when he saw the shooters were Scully and Mulder. Scully was already on the ground, and Mulder stood between it and her, keeping the flashlight on it and firing whenever he got a shot.

The sun was coming up. He doubted it would stop fighting because of the daylight, but it might be forced to retreat. All he had to do was keep it busy until then. 

The question remained, how the hell did Mulder and Scully get there?

 

 **A little over an hour ago...** Mulder and Scully nearly gave up looking for Cora Canyon until they found the Captain's car parked. He found a spot obscured by rocks and parked, and they kept an eye on the car. They heard the explosions, but Scully insisted they remain in the car until they had someone to follow. So they waited. 

Finally, Detective Griffin arrived, got into the car, and drove off, moving carefully, which allowed them to follow on foot. When they reached the narrow passage, they took care not to be seen, waiting as long as possible to power up their flashlights.

Once they got into the canyon, he smelled the smoke and charred flesh. 

"What the hell happened here?" Dana Scully asked. 

They examined an area of charred rock by the passage. It was clear one of the explosions went off here. Before he could ask her what she thought, screams echoed.

"Well, Mulder, you were right. They do need our help," she said.

They followed the voices with their flashlights out, no longer concerned with their own stealth. They found two people retreating while Detective Burkhardt faced the creature. 

"Suggestions?" Mulder asked.

"Concentrate our fire," she replied. "Wait for it to be still, aim for the chest, and shoot together."

As soon as it landed on Nick, they aimed and fired together with a POP-BANG! echoing with each bullet. They hit it again and again, but it didn't seem to notice until the third shot. Apparently, it could handle a gunshot just fine, but multiple shots to the same area compounded the injury. 

The sun was coming up. He had hoped that it would flee with dawn, but the monster didn't seem to care about the daylight. 

The creature looked at them with its dark, furious eyes and charged. It went to slash him, but he sidestepped it, and its back leg clipped Scully, knocking her to the ground. When she didn't get up, he checked her pulse. She was alive but unconscious. He didn't have time to think about how it happened because the creature circled back around. 

He fired a few more rounds, but it threw itself at him, knocking the wind out of him. Its claws sank into his gut. As he fell onto his back, its talons ripped away, and he felt his insides as they spilled out.

The blue morning dawn turned red, and even though he dropped his flashlight, he could see the giant bat glowering at him. 

Then he saw the monster turn to Scully's unconscious body. He fired again, but his clip was empty. 

"Scully!" he yelled. "Scully!"

He couldn't move. He tried to turn his head, but he couldn't see her. 

Then suddenly the beast was thrown back into his line of sight, screeching. Nick Burkhardt rushed it with some kind of long club, and he struck it back whenever it charged. 

Where was Scully? Was she alive?

His eyes followed the detective. The way he fought made Mulder think this man was used to fighting inhuman things that go bump in the night. He took blows from the same slashing claws, yet he didn't bleed. 

The creature got the best of the detective when he pulled back for another strike. It bit one of his wrists and yanked him off balance. Mulder tried to speak but choked as the clubbed weapon fell from Nick's hands. Then he pushed his captured fist into the thing's mouth. The expression on his face was fierce.

Then everything stopped. The creature's expression went vacant, and it became very still. Nick stepped back, but he was stuck. So he raised one leg and put his foot on its chest, pushing it away to free his arm. The monster fell dead at his feet, and Nick stood over it with a blade sticking out of his glove. 

Mulder decided he must be hallucinating. What kind of lunatic attacks a giant bat with a club and a knife? And who would thrust their own hand into its mouth? 

"Scully!" Mulder yelled one last time.

Then he blacked out.

 

Juliette had to drag Hank away from the fight. At first she thought he had been wounded, but he was only stunned by the surprise blow it dealt him.

"I can stand," he said. "We gotta find a way to see."

"It didn't slash you?"

"It was more interested in my goggles."

By the time they got to the car, Juliette heard the shots and could see the flashlights moving. Someone else was out here with them, so she ran back to help them. She arrived just in time to see Nick kill the third predator.

She saw the dead creature, Nick bleeding, an unconscious woman, and Mulder on the ground, disemboweled. It had all happened in less than two minutes. 

She checked Scully first. It seemed like she had hit her head on debris when she fell, but her pulse was strong.

Then she joined Nick, who was standing over Mulder. 

"Oh..." she said. 

"He's still got a pulse, but..." Nick said. 

"Why is our neighbor here?" she asked.

"What?"

"This is the man with the dog that was involved in the homicide," Juliette said. "He's the one that brought Rex to my attention."

"The FBI put him on this case."

"He told me he was a writer."

"Maybe he is. He's a special investigator. Sometimes the FBI gives that title to retired agents."

"Okay, I need some room."

"For what?" Nick asked.

"Just, give me some room, and we to get them out of here quick."

Nick left to get Hank as Juliette knelt down beside Mulder. She couldn't heal him the way she had Nick or Rex, but she knew enough about human anatomy to patch him up. As she looked at him, she remembered her initial impression of him on the first night they met. He cared about Rex, and he called his partner from her car to explain everything. This was a man who cared, and now his guts were spilling out everywhere. 

Juliette felt the anger roll over her, and she embraced the _woge_ that followed. It boosted her focus and power, and she required both.

She imagined time reversing, the tissues of his intestines reconnecting where they were torn and the organs returning to their proper place inside his body. She stared for a moment. It was beautiful to watch. 

The _woge_ completed. She felt light-headed and shook it off. She tried to focus on Mulder because one of the gouges hadn't yet knit itself into the adjoining skin. Her mouth was dry, and she started seeing spots. She stood up straight but wobbled sideways and fell to her knees.

"Juliette?" Nick said as he returned. "Juliette!"

She realized something was wrong just before she collapsed. Nick pulled her into his lap, cradling her as she convulsed. Soon after, darkness overwhelmed her.

 

Nick and Hank had faced some daunting times, but figuring out quickly how to transport three injured people, one body, and two barrels seemed impossible after staying up all night. 

Hank realized that Mulder and Scully must've come in their own car, so he took their keys and went to get it. 

Nick loaded Juliette into the SUV first, taking care not to bump her head. He stood next to her for a while, staring.

The last few days blurred together, but the one thing that stuck in his mind was Juliette, _woged_ over Mulder, stitching him together without even touching him. She had the awful, spectral look of a Hexenbiest, but Nick could see Juliette's spirit behind that face.

Hank returned with the car, and Nick realized that he hadn't finished loading the SUV. 

He helped Hank load Mulder and Scully.

"You go, they both need a hospital," Nick said. "I'll be right behind you."

His partner nodded and drove off. Nick popped open the trunk, but when he went around back, the biohazard barrels were gone, as was the body. It was broad daylight, and he could see the entire canyon. They were nowhere to be found.

 

Renard explained as much as he could to Detective Wilder and Wu. She seemed relieved that her case was over, but Wu didn't seem too happy about being left out of the showdown at the canyon.

Later that morning, he delivered a press conference explaining that several hunters assisted police in eliminating the three wild animals that were responsible for several deaths around Portland. He included glowing praise for the joint FBI-Clark county-Portland PD task force that resolved the case within thirty-six hours.

Technically, most of it was true.

But he felt defeated. The third creature murdered Nasir Sims, the bartender who refused protection, while they executed their plan at the canyon. He should've known that there could've been more than two. After all, he knew that feral _wesen_ traveled in families. 

And then the remains went missing, including a fully _woged_ Geflugelten Ritters body. That would soon come back to haunt them all, he had no doubt about it.

When he went home to change, he took a few moments to write to his contact with the Wesen Council.

> Dear Mister Silver:
> 
> I am writing to make a formal request for all information about the X-Files and any associated persons.
> 
> Sincerely,   
> Mister Fox

With his cousin Victor in town and this most recent blunder, he couldn't risk not knowing about Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. If they were on the wrong side, he'd have to deal with them sooner rather than later.

 

Scully waited by Mulder's bedside. She had been discharged first thing in the morning with a concussion and a very large bruise on her side. ICU nurses tried to escort her out, so she went to her office, put on one of her lab coats, and returned to the ICU to sit with him. 

"What's up doc?" he said weakly.

"Mulder," she said. "How do you feel?"

"Surprised," he said. "You fix me up?"

"No, I woke up here," she said. "Do you know what happened?"

"You should ask Detective Burkhardt," he said. "I'm pretty sure I hallucinated the fight I saw between him and the man-bat."

"I called the precinct, and they told me there were three wild animals that were killed. Same as they reported on the news."

"You ask to do the necropsies?"

"The bodies were destroyed due to health concerns."

"Of course they were," he replied. 

"Mulder, the doctor's want to know what happened to you," she said. "You had a long gash along your stomach, and the detective who dropped us off said it was an animal attack. That doesn't explain why they had to remove this from you."

She held out a medical jar with a long, jagged nail with fur on one side.

She added, "Your large intestine was wrapped around it."

"Probably happened when my guts were hanging out," he said.

"Mulder, you had a gash along your stomach, probably made with this," she said as she shook the jar. "But your weren't disemboweled."

"I was. I remember putting my hands over it, feeling it," he said. "Come on, that sharp thing was in my guts, Scully. How do you think it got there? They just leapt out, grabbed it, and pulled it in?"

"If that's the case, someone must've treated you before they brought you in."

"More like they waved a magic wand," he said. "Scully, I'm telling you, that thing got me with more than one claw."

"I believe you," she said. "I'm too glad you're not dead to be worried about explaining it."

"Scully, you softie."

"Once they discharge you from the ICU, I'm going back to that canyon," she said. 

"Are you already back to work?" he asked, as if just realizing she was wearing her lab coat.

 

Nick spent nearly thirty minutes covering himself with salve. Rosalee was right, it made his skin feel and look much better. 

He went into his bedroom - not the guestroom, but his real bedroom - and found Juliette awake and packing a bag.

"Rosalee said you should stay in bed," he said. 

"I will once I get to their house."

"Whose house?"

"Monroe and Rosalee's," she replied. "I'm going to stay with them for a few days until I find a place."

"You have a place."

"Nick, I nearly killed you."

"It was an accident."

"Exactly, an accident," she said. "I thought I could do it, but I can't."

"What? What can't you do?"

"I can't pretend like I'm the same," she said. "It's not just becoming _wesen_ , Nick. My family kept part of my heritage from me, and now that I know it's there, I don't know what it means. I don't know what to do about it, but I can't pretend things haven't changed. Not after watching you boil like that."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I need to leave. Next time I might kill you."

"And there might never be a next time," he said. "When I first became I Grimm, I kept it from you to try and protect you, and instead you were kidnapped by a Daemonfeuer and put into a coma by a Hexenbiest. You can't think that, after everything I put you through, that I'd hold anything against you."

"That's part of the problem," she said. "Whatever has happened, Nick, the only time you have harmed me was when you were a zombie. Being a Grimm doesn't make you explode the glass from picture frames or explode the back of someone's skull clean off or burn someone from the inside-out. What's going to happen next time, Nick? Will I gouge our your eyes? Cut off your head? What if the next thing that happens can't be healed or reversed? What if I kill you? I can't... I won't do it."

"Running away won't help."

"I'm not running away, Nick," she said. "I'm leaving before I kill you."

"I don't want you to go," he said as his heart sank. "Tell me I'm wrong. But to me, it sounds like you're leaving and not planning on coming back."

"I don't know," she said. "If I learn how to control what I can do - "

"When. When you learn," he said.

"Maybe then I won't want to come back," she said. 

"And maybe you will."

"Goodbye, Nick," she said before she kissed him chastely on the lips.

Nick pulled her into a real kiss, and she indulged him. Then she put her hand on his cheek and turned away. For a few moments, he felt sick, paralyzed. 

Before she got to the door he asked, "What if I need your help?"

"Try not to," she replied. "Not for a while."

 

That Saturday, Juliette parked on Prescott Street. She had found a temporary apartment to rent for a few months, and Nick agreed to be out of the house so she could pick up a few things. 

He had left out boxes, and when she looked inside, she saw that he had packed them for her. One contained her favorite sweater, the book she was reading, her favorite mug, and her slippers. As she checked each box, she started to cry. He packed up everything she came here to get because he knew exactly what she'd miss.

She felt miserable, and she suddenly wished she hadn't asked him not to be home. 

She left him a thank you note after she put the boxes in her car. 

Juliette detoured so she could drive by Mulder's house. With everything going on, she didn't have time to do more than ask if he survived his injuries. She hadn't seen him since she passed out while trying to heal him.

She found a space across the street from his house. There were four cars in the driveway, so someone must be home. She didn't have to wait long before Mulder came out with Rex and a boy about ten or twelve. They looked very happy.

'At least I did something right,' she thought to herself before she drove away.

She didn't know - none of them did - that at that exact moment, somewhere deep in Forest Park, there were three freshly dug graves, marked only with small piles of neatly stacked stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Term Reference and Pronunciation Guide**  
>  The following universe-specific terms were referenced in this chapter. A single asterisk (*) indicates that the term has been augmented/modified from canon. A double asterisk (**) indicates terms original to Addendum GW.
> 
>  **cornu cervi parvum** (translates from Latin as 'small deer horn') - Deer velvet harvested from the developing antlers that can be used in medicine for a wide range of health problems.
> 
> ** **fetzig der albtraum** (pronounced fet-ZIG der ab-trom, translates from the German as 'insane nightmare') - historically, the term Grimms used to refer to _wesen_ with O.F.D.
> 
> ** **geflügelten ritters** [alternatively spelled geflugelten ritters, plural and singular forms spelled the same] (pronounced gell-FLU-get-EN rih-ter, translates from the German as 'winged knight') - a bat-like _wesen_ species known for their impervious skin. They have webbed membranes that enable them to glide and fly while _woged_.
> 
>  **kehrseite** (pronounced KER-zytuh, translates from German as 'the flip side' or 'the other side') - the term _wesen_ use to describe non- _wesen_ individuals
> 
> ** **O.F.D.** (acronym for Overtaking Feral Disorder) - the medical term for the rare genetic disorder that occurs from generations of inbreeding. It begins to develop in young adulthood, slowly presenting physical and mental changes, and eventually results in the _wesen_ essence manifesting physically and remaining fixed, even after death. The mental deterioration varies, but often individuals adopt animalistic behaviors that reflect their _wesen_ heritage.
> 
>  **sauver sa peau** (pronounced so-vey-sah-pooh, translates from French as 'save his skin') - a liquid (or potion) that preserves a _wesen_ in full _woge_ after death for a short period of time to allow for the harvesting of _woged_ physical characteristics, such as horns, fangs, and hide. It is usually delivered by bullet.
> 
>  **wesen** (pronounced VES-sin) - the collective term for the various types or species of parahuman beings that can be seen by Grimms.
> 
>  **woge** (pronounced VOL-guh, translated from German as 'wave' or 'surge') - the term used to describe the transformation between human appearance and the other being or nature of any _wesen_.
> 
>  **ulmus fulva** (translates from Latin as 'yellow elk') - the scientific name for Slippery Elm, an herbal remedy used in salves for wounds and consumed as a supplement for sore throats and stomach ailments. It contains mucilage, which when mixed with water becomes a gel that can coat and sooth inflammation.
> 
> ** **ungezähmt** [alternatively spelled ungezahmt] (pronounced oon-gah-zempt, translates from German as 'uncurbed' or 'feral') - the German word for 'feral' used as a euphemism for OFD.


	5. Residuum Immemorial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Mulder in recovery at the hospital, Scully investigates events at Cora Canyon, and she finds herself taking a hard look at Captain Renard and Detectives Griffin and Burkhardt. Are they - as Mulder insists - part of a conspiracy, or are they hiding even darker secrets?
> 
>  **IMPORTANT** : Content Warning! This chapter contains some especially dark and disturbing content, particularly a mix of violent and sexual content that may be disturbing for some readers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** : This chapter is currently undergoing beta and proofreading and therefore is subject to change.

Dana Scully arrived at Cora Canyon Wednesday afternoon to find the entire area marked out with crime scene tape and blanketed with police.

As soon as she parked, an officer approached and said, "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I'm here to see Captain Renard," she replied. "I've been working on this case - "

He interrupted, "Oh, you must be Burkhardt's lady vet, huh? The Captain's right over there."

Scully could've corrected him, but he didn't ask for identification or her name before he walked away. 

She wondered what the phrase 'Burkhardt's lady vet' was supposed to mean as she made her way to the Captain.

"Captain Renard," she said.

"Doctor Scully, isn't it?" he replied. 

"Yes, I'm here - "

"I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave," he interrupted. 

"Captain, I was here last night," she said. "I worked this case with your team."

"I know. My detectives told me you and your partner saved their lives, but you weren't an official investigator on this case. From what I understand, you're not even with the Bureau anymore. I don't want to sound ungrateful - your help was invaluable - but technically, you're a civilian. And I can't give a civilian access to an active crime scene," he said.

"Crime scene?" she asked. "Since when is eliminating dangerous animals considered a crime?"

"It's not, but procedure - "

She cut him off, "Tell me, Captain Renard, is it procedure to kill dangerous animals with explosives?"

"According to your own account, bullets weren't enough to bring these things down," Renard said. "We attempted to contain them with non-lethal measures, but we were prepared to use an extreme alternative because of the intel you and your partner provided us. And it's damn good thing you did." 

"Agent Mulder is in recovery at the hospital," she said. "So he can't follow up on this himself. That's why I'm here. The FBI expects a report."

Renard hesitated before he replied. "I appreciate that. The truth is, Doctor Scully, the crime scene tape is only up to keep hikers and the press away from the biohazard team."

"Biohazard team? I thought the bodies had already been destroyed," she said.

"They have been," he replied. "But according to animal control, bats are viral reservoirs for pathogens that can infect humans. We have to assume that possibility exists for these animals, too. Protocol calls for a biohazard team to collect and destroy all biological materials. We also have members of the bomb squad handling any ordnance." 

"If that's the case, why hasn't the hospital taken precautions for my partner or the other survivor, Officer McDuff?" Scully asked.

"The doctors would have to answer that," he replied smoothly.

"You mentioned that you've known about the X-Files for some time. You might've read summaries of our case reports or the books written about the criminals we put away, but I can assure you, whatever you think you know is just a fraction of the story. A sliver. A peek. Believe me when I tell you that you have never worked with or against anyone like my partner. And, unlike me, you can't play the civilian card with him," she said. "So I dearly hope you're not hiding anything, Captain Renard."

Renard seemed slightly rattled, but only slightly. Before he could reply, his phone rang.

"I have to take this," he said.

"Goodbye for now, Captain Renard."

 

Fox Mulder woke up in his hospital bed. He didn't have a digital clock in his room, but it was still dark. He sat up slowly, sure not to rip his stitches, so he could read the time from the digital monitor by his bed.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, followed by an arm wrapping around his midsection and a head next to his ear. He smiled. He had been expecting her.

"Does it really matter what time it is, Fox?" she asked.

Something about her voice made him turn to her.

Before his eyes met hers, a scaled hand tore open his wound. The pain was so intense it paralyzed him, and he screamed as his blood spurted and his intestines fell out.

Then Mulder woke up.

He expected his heart to be racing or at least to be covered in sweat, but he felt fine. Daylight streamed in through the windows, and somehow, that made him feel better. 

But something was wrong. His wound was wet, so he looked under the bandage and saw his stitches were oozing. He paged the nurse.

He checked the clock. It was almost four in the afternoon, which meant he must've fallen asleep after lunch. Scully would be pleased; she had told him he needed rest.

The trouble was, his dreams didn't seem interested in letting him get any rest. Last night, they had circled around the moment when the human-sized bat descended on Scully. He tried to run to her, but his entrails kept getting snagged on trees and rocks and the like. He had woken up at least twice, both times afraid that he had survived the attacks and Scully had not. He wasn't sure if he should say anything; in his experience, there was no treatment for nightmares.

"Are you all right, Mr. Mulder?" the nurse asked as she came in. 

"Nurse, uh - sorry, what's your name?"

"Elizabeth. Or Nurse Aiken, if you prefer."

"Nurse Aiken, I woke up and realized I'm bleeding... or oozing, I guess."

She inspected the bandage and stitches. Then she said, "Don't you worry, Mr. Mulder, it seems like a few stitches came undone while you were napping. It's nothing to worry about. We'll have you fixed up in no time."

"So I can still be discharged today?" he asked.

"That's between you and the doctor, Mr. Mulder," she replied. "First things first, let's get you stitched back up."

 

Scully returned to the hospital after being denied entry to the Cora Canyon crime scene. Doctor Locke caught sight of her as soon as she came in.

"Doctor Scully," Locke said. "I thought you were under doctor's orders to take the day off."

"I'm here as a visitor, not a doctor," she replied. "I'm afraid my partner isn't a very good patient. I'm sure he's bothering every orderly, nurse, and doctor on the floor."

"I haven't heard anything."

"He must be sleeping then," Scully replied.

Locke chuckled and said, "Well, in any case, I hope you both recover quickly."

Scully went to her office to check her inbox. As expected, it was packed with lab results, patient updates, and memos. She unlocked her office and emptied her inbox onto her desk. She might not be working today, but she planned on catching up for tomorrow.

She quickly sorted the contents of her inbox, separating notes and department announcements from patient results. She stopped at a handwritten note scribbled on a notecard.

> Doctor Scully:
> 
> Chloe Bennett discharged on Tuesday morning. Patient returned to hospital today via ER at 4pm.
> 
> Nurse Dallon

She read through the note three times to be sure. Chloe Bennett, age fifteen, had been kidnapped and assaulted on Monday. Two officers brought her to the ER with her mother that afternoon. Scully had her admitted immediately because she required treatment and observation. She also did it so she would be the primary physician over Doctor Hembree, who hadn't displayed much tact when dealing with car accident victims. The last thing a kidnapping survivor needed was a boob for a doctor.

Scully diagnosed a minor concussion, facial lacerations, and shock. After speaking with Chloe's mother Beverly and discovering that her kidnapper had also murdered her brother Peter days before, Scully decided to keep her overnight for observation and rest, even though all her tests came back normal. When she realized she wouldn't be at work on Tuesday, she checked in by phone, and Nurse Forest assured her that the morning exam had gone well. So Scully agreed to have Chloe discharged as soon as her mother could take her home.

Yet, a little over a day later, the patient returned to the ER. Given the timeframe, Chloe would likely still be in the Emergency Room being evaluated for admission. 

She grabbed her electronic chart and went straight to the ER, her mind reeling at the possibilities. What did she miss?

"Doctor Scully," Dallon said.

"Nurse Dallon, thank you for the note," she replied. "Is Chloe still here?"

"Bed four," he replied. "But I should warn you, some cop just came in a minute ago to talk with her and her mother. I stepped away so they could chat."

She walked over to bed four, which had the curtain pulled around, and heard two voices speaking in hushed whispers. 

The first voice, clearly male, said, "Did someone threaten you or imply danger? Or did the reporters - "

"Oh, no, it's nothing like that," the other voice replied. Scully could tell it was Chloe's mother Beverly. "She was doing better, but then last night she felt a little ill, started a fever. This morning it got worse."

"Do you think that it's related to what happened on Monday?" the first voice asked. 

"Only the doctors will really be able to tell us that," Beverly replied. "Detective Burkhardt, why are you really here? If there's another _Leporem Venator_ in Portland, then we - "

"No, no," Nick replied. "If there was, I would tell you. I promise that. The officers I put on your house called it in when you went to the ER, so I just wanted to make sure you were both safe."

"Well, if there isn't another _Leporem Venator_ here yet, it's just a matter of time," she replied. "Once you're better, Chloe, we've got to leave Portland."

"Mom!"

"Actually, that's the other reason I came here," he replied. "I know that your family has gone through too much already, and I wanted you to know that if you decided to stay, I'd look out for you."

"I appreciate the thought, but one person watching over us, even a cop, wouldn't be enough."

"I wouldn't be the only one."

"What does that mean? Are there... others like you?" she asked with fear obvious in her voice.

"When I was working on your case, I had what you could call special help," Nick replied. "Take this, incase you change your mind. The storeowner here will help you, and my cell phone is on the back. Call it anytime."

"Thank you, Detective Burkhardt."

When Nick stepped out from behind the curtain, Scully turned so her back would be facing him, but he didn't really look at anyone as he slipped out of the ER. In fact, Scully had the distinct impression that Nick didn't want anyone to notice him. The conversation had been curious to say the least, but his silent and stealthy retreat from the hospital was what made Scully suspicious.

Her previous interactions with him suggested he was an intelligent detective with a persuasive - perhaps even manipulative - personality. When he spoke with her, she felt like he was holding things back, but she couldn't tell if he was hiding information, theories, or something else entirely. 

But, having worked on the X-Files, Scully had been in plenty of situations where resolving a case meant being abjectly pragmatic with agents and officers from other units, and she never withheld things to hide the truth but rather to reveal it. Too much eye rolling prevented good work from being done. Perhaps Burkhardt operated under the same notion.

Skinner had asked Mulder to look into this man, so Scully had taken the opportunity to size him up. Yesterday, she saw him as a younger, more pragmatic version of Mulder, willing to accept the impossible, the supernatural, in order to fight it. Unlike Mulder, however, Burkhardt didn't share his theories or demand others consider the improbable options; in fact, he willing invented or accepted a more palatable version of events. 

She assumed he did this because he knew that a detective chasing aliens or mutants would lose his badge, but the way Burkhardt had spoken to Chloe and Beverly suggested something quite different. While she didn't know the details, it seemed that the Bennetts were still in danger, despite the kidnapper being killed on Monday, and for whatever reason, Burkhardt believed himself to be the only cop capable of protecting them. 

He didn't seem interested in the truth, but he did want to help people. Beyond that, the only thing clear about Detective Burkhardt was that he was hiding something.

Scully took a moment. She came down here to check on Chloe, and according to her chart, the ER doctor wanted to rule out appendicitis. Blood work wasn't back yet, but all indications suggested that Chloe's current visit wasn't related to her injuries on Monday.

She was close enough to the curtain that she could hear their voices through it.

"Mom, cant' we stay?" Chloe asked.

"Chloe..."

"Please, Mom, I want to stay. I want to bury Peter, that's what normal people do."

"Excuse me, Doctor Scully," Dallon said, pulling her away. "I've been asked to take Chloe down for an abdominal CT."

"The ER doctor seems to be on track. Will you keep me updated on her status?" Scully asked.

"Of course I will."

"Thank you."

Scully stepped away before Nurse Dallon opened the curtain around bed four, and she went upstairs. She couldn't help Chloe until she was actually admitted to the hospital, and that would likely take hours at best. So, in the meantime, she needed to check on Mulder.

 

Mulder was on his best behavior because Scully worked in this hospital, which meant anything he said or did would likely reflect on her. He did try to lie still and relax.

The trouble was he was so _bored_. 

He didn't have his computer or tablet, and he forgot to ask Scully to bring him something to read. According to Nurse Aiken, he could stand up and walk, but only for short distances.

"You're sitting down," Scully said as she joined him. "I thought you'd be up and pacing by now."

"I actually had a nap," he replied. "Didn't know when you'd be back."

"I thought I'd join you for dinner," she said.

"You're willingly eating hospital food to spend time with me? You must love me."

"You know I do."

"I do."

"Excuse me, Doctor Scully, Mister Mulder," Nurse Aiken said as she entered. "Sorry to interrupt, I've got brought you your dinners."

Aiken quickly set out the trays. 

"Thank you," Scully said.

"Enjoy," Aiken said before she left.

"Oh, and I brought you your tablet," Scully said as she pulled it out of her bag. 

"Does that mean I'm not getting out of here anytime soon?" he asked.

"Not for at least another day."

"At least I've got pudding. Did you find anything on the case?" 

"Yes and no," she replied. 

"Careful, Scully, I'm getting intrigued."

"They're hiding something," she said. "I'm not sure what, but they are. And that detective Skinner asked you to look into - "

"Burkhardt," Mulder said, completing her sentence. "I know it was probably some kind of concussion hallucination thing, but that guy took on a giant bat with some kind of martial art staff and a knife. I'm talking full-on close quarters combat. And he _won_."

"He's hiding something," she said. 

"What?" Mulder asked, unsure if he heard her correctly.

"I'm not saying he fought off a monster with a sword, Mulder, but he's definitely hiding something," Scully said. "I just overheard a conversation that makes me think it's a lot more complicated than a penchant for slaying dragons."

"What did he say?"

"He said he'd look out for one of my patients and her family, like they were in danger. As if he was the only one who knew about it, who knew how to protect them," she said. 

"Scully, are you suggesting that this man is part of a conspiracy?" Mulder asked, surprised. 

"I'm saying that... he could be."

"Uh-huh. And you think others are involved? Possibly protecting him?"

"His partner and Captain, certainly," Scully said. "But I can't tell if it's just this case they're trying to cover up or something else."

"Skinner's assignment tells me it's something else."

"If he knew with any kind of certainty, he wouldn't have asked you to look into it."

"Maybe not," he replied. "But this guy has been linked to three dead FBI agents, one of which was decapitated in his house by a family friend."

"Decapitated?" she repeated.

"According to the report, the FBI agent shot Captain Renard three times in the chest and then went after this family friend. Uh, her name... her name was something like Theresa Randal or Rubel or something like that." 

"And somehow this agent - "

"Agent Weston Steward," Mulder offered.

"Agent Steward ended up decapitated," Scully said.

"Ended up?" Mulder repeated. "You make it sound like he tripped over the rug and had his block lopped off by the sharp edge of an ugly sculpture."

"I take it that's not what happened."

He laughed. "No, uh, Theresa cut his head off with a machete."

"Did she explain where she got the weapon or why she had it?" Scully asked.

"Apparently, it was Burkhardt's," he replied. "He claimed he was teaching her self defense, but as far as I know, most of the time that doesn't involve machetes."

"Did they find out why Steward went after Renard?"

"If they did, it wasn't in the report," Mulder replied. 

"I'm going to look into this most recent case," she said. "Maybe it'll give us some insight on what's been going on here in Portland."

 

Scully dug through Mulder's box of random items. He kept it tucked under a desk in his home office on the pretext that, one day, he'd actually unpack it. Of course, he'd been meaning to do so for nearly six years. 

But she didn't have time to sort everything at this moment, so she shifted through the specialty equipment, weird goggles, old technology, and mementos. After a lot of jostling, she pulled out a hard hat with a mounted flashlight. She tested it and found that both the LED bulb and batteries were working.

Rex barked loudly when she went into the living room. He ran up to her, happily circling her as she walked to her purse.

"We just got back from your walk," she said to the avid canine. "I'll take you out again when I get back. I promise. Lie down, Rex. Lie down."

The dog obeyed the command, curling up on his bed beside the loveseat. 

Scully donned her holster and gun, checking that it was loaded, before she went out the front door and locked it behind her. She dropped the hard hat in the passenger's seat of her car on top of her large purse.

She had waited until midnight in hopes of avoiding the road blocks Renard had ordered. If her information was correct, there would only be a few officers posted at the main roads into and out of the area, so she took the old dirt back roads to Cora Canyon as indicated by her farmer's almanac. It took longer, certainly, but she made it.

There were no units near the canyon itself, likely protocol from the biohazard teams that Renard had called in. She decided to drive into the canyon itself. It was extra work for her - taking down barricades and shifting tape carefully so it would look undisturbed tomorrow - but her car had powerful headlights she could use, not to mention all of her equipment, making it worth the extra thirty minutes.

She considered the situation as she worked. The biohazard team had the perfect cover story. She had followed up with them, and their team leader, Doctor Natalie Warden Rock, provided a reasonable explanation. Bats have been known to harbor dangerous pathogens, including the Ebola virus, and they have been recorded as hosts for sixty different zoonotic viruses transmittable to humans. Thus, destroying a bat carcass as a precaution due to health hazard was entirely sensible. The fact that it also prevented anyone from doing a physical analysis of the remains to determine if the creature was animal, human, or something in between wasn't a factor in her decision.

On top of it all, Doctor Rock insisted that she was the one who decided that the remains must be destroyed, not Captain Renard. Was this the conspiracy of Mulder's dreams, or was Doctor Rock an unknowing pawn?

One of these creatures targeted her. She couldn't risk not knowing everything about these creatures and this case.

She scoured Cora Canyon, hoping that the police might've missed some fragment during their daytime sweeps. When her initial scans were fruitless, she decided to explore the areas farthest from the explosions on the assumption that the scorched areas received the most scrutiny. 

It took the better part of two hours, but she bagged what seemed to be a human talus bone that had landed along the jagged edge of the cliff by the water, easily mistaken for a dirt-covered stone by the untrained eye.

She then turned her attention to the water. It was a very slow-moving river, but it did have a current. How deep did it run? Did they bother to drag it? Did Scully really want to wade into water searching for creature bits?

She could only answer the last question, and this wasn't a matter of want anymore. So she returned to her car, hid her evidence bag just in case, and pulled out her rubber boots. She searched for anything that could be used as a sieve and nearly gave up until she found the extra large fish net for the aquarium still packed up in the trunk. 

Scully laughed at herself as she changed footwear. It was nearly three in the morning, and she was about to wade into a river and net remains.

It didn't make sense how much she enjoyed such ludicrous activities. She acknowledged it as her missing her former career, and, more to the point, she missed the experience of investigating with Mulder.

She stood in that river for nearly forty minutes, recovering a thumb and possibly an index finger, both bloated from their time in the water. She could've stayed for another hour without worrying about the daylight, but she was forced to return to shore when she began shivering in earnest. She wasn't equipped to deal with hypothermia. 

She dried off at the car and changed into her sweats from her gym bag. She only found three pieces, but she had more than enough for basic DNA analysis and possibly even fingerprints. No matter what she believed about the man-bat that she encountered previously, there was no denying one simple fact: all the remains she had collected tonight were human.

 

Mulder opened his eyes. It was dark. He felt a hand on his shoulder, followed by an arm wrapping around his midsection and a head next to his ear. He smiled. He had been expecting her.

"Does it really matter what time it is, Fox?" she asked.

Something about her voice made him turn to her; he stared into her blue eyes, desperately possessive of his beautiful Juliette.

The corners of her mouth slowly turned up into a wicked and fantastic smile. She pawed at him, and he felt a jot of pain when her hand crept past his wound. But it was soon overtaken by the pleasure of her grip on his erection, and suddenly, he didn't care if he ripped open his entire body. He yanked her onto his lap, and she shoved him down hard against the hospital bed. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Her skin began to scale, and her face became twisted and horrible, like a skull. She rubbed him harder, and even though he was completely repulsed, his body responded to her touch, bringing him right to the edge too soon. 

But before he could climax, she let go, and her newly-freed hand ripped away his stitches.

Then her hand plunged inside. He screamed as she tugged on his intestines, slowly pulling him outside if his body with the look of pure ecstasy on her horrible face.

The pain intensified to the point where he couldn't scream anymore. It was like the breath was taken right from his lungs. He was terrified.

He thrashed, and she let up, no longer pinning him down. He tried to calm himself and keep still, but as soon as he managed to block the pain, she moved again. She slid down him, covering herself in his blood, until her lips reached his still-throbbing hard-on. She smiled up at him, and for a moment he saw a sliver of her human face. 

Then she took him into her mouth and sucked in, causing him to buck in desire and then scream in pain. She kept going until he came, and his insides spilled out over her head, neck, and shoulders.

She revealed in it.

Then Mulder woke up. 

He felt revolted, sick to his stomach. The dream didn't just seem real, but it felt real, like waking up with a thumping heart rate. It was one thing to have a black widow nightmare, but this was on a whole new level of creepy. 

And on top of it all, he felt guilty, like his dreaming mind had conjured up something that was akin to cheating on Scully. 

Embarrassed, he checked to see if he had actually experienced a wet dream, and relief flooded him when he found he hadn't. 

But something was wrong. His bandage was wet, too wet, so he lifted it. The stitches were in place and secure, but thy were oozing. 

He paged the nurse.

 

The phone rang at six thirty in the morning, less than an hour after Scully had crawled into bed.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Doctor Scully?" a woman asked.

"Yes?"

"This is TreeView. I'm calling about Fox Mulder," she replied.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, suddenly alert.

"His stitches have shown some abnormal oozing," the woman replied. "He's gotten new stitches, and so far everything seems fine."

"Do you know what caused it?" Scully asked. "Did he become overly active? Or maybe an infection - "

"Doctor Scully, the truth is, we don't know what caused it, though he was asleep when it started so we're fairly certain it's not activity-induced. Like I said, we've re-done his stitches, and so far everything is normal. No fever or other signs of infection. We'll keep an eye on it. The doctor wanted me to reassure you that there's nothing to worry about," the woman replied. 

"Please let me know if it happens again," Scully said.

"Will-do."

"Thank you, goodbye."

Scully hung up, concerned. Was it possible that the creature secreted something in its claws that could've caused residual tissue loss? She remembered that its saliva had enzymes that reacted that way, but those only showed up in the bite marks. 

She shook her head. Abnormal oozing could be caused by anything from a reaction to the sutures, antibiotic ointment, or bandages to an abscess draining. The hospital probably wouldn't have bothered mentioning it to someone who didn't work there and insisted on having updates on his condition.

Giving up on sleep, Scully sat up in bed, mulling over the facts of the case as they had unfolded. She had to go through everything again, without Renard or Burkhardt or any local police looking over her shoulder.

She wasn't going to sleep anyway, so she picked up the phone and called the FBI field office.

 

Mulder did everything in his power to be calm and composed, but his nightmare had rattled him on too many levels. According to his doctors, his chart, and Scully, he had a large tear in his abdominal wall but sustained no serious internal injuries. The doctors told him he was lucky, that it could've been much worse.

Trouble was, he actually remembered it being a hell of a lot worse. He remembered feeling his insides spilling out and trying to restore them or hold them in place with his hands. He remembered wanting to save Scully when that thing turned on her but not being able to move. He had been helpless and dying.

Yet the next day, he woke up with little more than a repaired scratch a giant claw tangled in his guts. Scully seemed sure of it. She had been concerned about him, certainly but not concerned like she would be had he been recently disemboweled.

It didn't make any sense.

The dream. It started the same way each time, and each time a woman he had been waiting for showed up. The first few times, he woke up before he saw who it was, but that last time he saw her: Juliette Silverton, the vet who helped him with Rex.

Mulder wouldn't deny that she was a beautiful woman, but he didn't feel any kind of attraction to her. At least, not now and in this moment. But in his dream... in his dream he had been captivated by her, even when her face changed into a scaled monster.

But why did he dream of her as the creature who disemboweled him? Was it just a random connection his unconscious made between the man-bat and the veterinarian? Was it related to his miraculous recovery? Or, as Scully would likely suggested, was it related to him hallucinating a more grievous injury?

He laughed at himself, and, despite the twinge of pain from his surgical scar, he felt infinitely better. He had a recurring bad dream, not an informant plying him with intelligence. Maybe his injury hadn't been so terrible.

Maybe what he really needed was to get the hell out of this hospital.

 

Scully spent most of the morning putting in requests on behalf of Special Investigator Fox Mulder. She collected prints from the evidence she gathered from the night previous. Then she packaged what she had and shipped it out to the lab, requesting a full DNA analysis and advanced fingerprinting techniques.

She ran into more than a few issues, especially with local law enforcement in Burley. Since Idaho had no field office, the Salt Lake City field office usually handled federal investigations there, but the evidence and files weren't there. She spent forty-five minutes on the phone with the coroner in Idaho trying to figure it out, only to discover that, in this case, given the related crimes in Washington, the Seattle field office coordinated everything.

Scully had forgotten how frustrating it was dealing with bureaucracy and all its attendant conflicts based on mistrust and competition. She did not miss this part of her old job.

More than one person she spoke to asked her, "Isn't that case closed?" They asked as if they had never bothered to write a report after closing a case with multiple homicides. Worse, some asked as if it was strange for her to have any questions at all. As far as the bureau was concerned, a trio of violent animals were to blame. No more questions needed to be asked.

No one even cared to ask, "If these were animals, is it possible someone was controlling them?"

That was how she convinced the snippet Seattle agent to take her seriously and actually open the damn coroner's report from Idaho on the first victim, Zack Tisdale. After receiving a digital copy of the report and the x-rays, she confirmed that there were indications for two foreign objects embedded in his ribs, neither of which were extracted. In fact, she could tell that the coroner had written the entire report under the assumption that the case was closed as an animal attack. It was sloppy, subpar work.

So she ordered the body to be sent to the lab at the Portland field office. Surprisingly, the request went through with ease, and the local law enforcement office went so far as to arrange overnight transportation.

On a theory, she put in a few more requests with the Seattle field office: state-wide reports from the last week for both missing persons and suspicious deaths. She also logged into the Global Federal Search System (GFSS) with his credentials to run a search on Myron Stefaniuk's alias, Michael Smith, in all of Washington state.

 _Mulder, you really need to use a different password_ , she thought. He'd been using 'trustno1' as his password for over two decades now.

With that, Scully went to the hospital to have lunch with Mulder, who finally reached the familiar stir crazy stage that arose when he was forced to sit still for more than a few hours at a time.

"Come on, Scully, I can't sleep here again tonight," he said.

"The nurse told me you refused a sedative," she said.

"Come on, Scully, when have sedatives ever worked for me?" he asked. "Please tell me I can go home tonight."

"Your doctors said it's not a good idea," she replied. "Especially because they had to redo your sutures. Again. But I've arranged for you to be discharged this evening. I need the afternoon to catch up on some paperwork."

"I can handle the afternoon," he replied with a smile. "Are you going to fill me in on the investigation?"

"What do you mean?"

He laughed. "Scully, I had to put my tablet on mute because I kept getting alerts all morning. Either you've been putting in requests on my behalf or I've been sleep-emailing again."

"I might've followed up on a few things," she replied.

"A few things?" he repeated. 

"You still have to do a formal report for Skinner."

"Come on. I've spent the better part of the morning playing a game I'd like to call, 'What the hell is Scully looking for?'" he said. "I've even got confirmation about a body being shipped to Portland."

"I wanted to take a closer look at the first victim's remains," she said. 

"Why?" he asked, practically leaning out of the hospital bed.

"Mulder, you're supposed to be resting," she said firmly. "I promise, if there's anything to tell, you'll be the first to know."

 

Scully spent her afternoon in her office, despite Doctor Locke's disapproval. Technically speaking, she didn't do any work, but she did read the updates on her current patients. She learned that Chloe Bennett had been diagnosed with acute appendicitis and was now recovering from a successful appendectomy. Several of her patients had rescheduled rather than see an another doctor, which meant next week was going to be a long one.

She organized everything and left before four o'clock. Mulder was already dressed and ready for discharge, but despite his eagerness to return to work, he was obviously exhausted. He put up surprisingly little resistance when she told him he would be on bed rest until her brother arrived on Saturday.

So, after tucking Mulder in bed upstairs, she began sorting through the responses that came through in the afternoon. The FBI had sent her the results from the partial fingerprints run against the database of the entire Pacific Northwest.

Procedural TV shows presented computers analyzing fingerprints and instantly identifying a single match. It was a lovely thought, but in the real world, computers rarely identified fewer than ten possible matches. From there, a forensics expert would have to examine each of the possibilities to find a match, should one exist. In this case, her search yielded four hundred possible matches.

Scully wasn't a fingerprinting expert, but the print she ran had accidental whorls, which were rare and easy to identify by sight, even with partial prints. She easily discounted most of the hits, leaving her with ten possible results. She narrowed it further to three, and while she couldn't verify which one, all three matches had the same last name. That didn't seem coincidental. So she pulled up their records.

The first record was for Tilda Feller, born 1952. She was arrested twice: in 1960, petty theft and in 1964, breaking and entering, assault, and battery. 

The second record was for Lasa Feller, born 1973. She was arrested in 1985 and 1987 for assault and battery and again in 1989 for assault with a deadly weapon.

The third record was for Kipson Feller, born 1979. He was arrested in 1990 for attempted murder, but the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.

Tilda, Lasa, and Kipson were family, but the file didn't indicate if Tilda was the mother or some other relation. The police noted that none of the family members had official identification such as a driver's license, social security number, or passports. The locals had to dig for birth certificates, and they never found one for Lasa.

Scully downloaded the files and ran additional searches on the Feller family. 

She glanced at their mug shots. All three had facial features associated with Hurler syndrome, sometimes called gargoylism: frontal bossing, orbital hypertelorism, depressed nasal bridges, and gapped teeth. It would be easy to draw a ridiculous conclusion about this family and the man-bats, but none of them had so much as webbed fingers, let alone bat wings.

Still, there was a strong possibility that one of the Fellers died recently in Cora Canyon from an explosion, probably while assisting the Portland PD. Either they were waiting to announce the fatality until after they informed next of kin, or they were covering up the death for some reason.

Scully shook her head. Before she drew any conclusions, she needed more facts. There were plenty of reasons to withhold the name of a fatality, not the least of which was that they simply didn't know one occurred. A hunter could've been caught in the crossfire or in his own trap. The explosions could've rendered a person's remains indistinguishable from the human-like animals that were targeted. 

She found one more record for Lasa Feller. In 1991, she received two birth certificates for twins: Baby Girl Feller and Baby Boy Feller.

She reviewed the files she printed. Legally, she had nothing. They might not hold up in a court of law, but they might be enough to jolt a few detectives into giving her straight answers.

There was a knock on the doorframe. 

"Mulder, you're supposed to be in bed," she said automatically. 

"But I'm still suppose to eat, right, doc?" he asked.

Her jaw dropped when she saw it was past nine o'clock. 

"Oh, dinner... Mulder, I'm so sorry," she said. "I forgot. You should've had something to eat at seven."

"I wasn't starving, Scully," he replied. "But you also need to eat, so..."

She abandoned her paperwork and went to Mulder, who was leaning against the wall in his rob and pajamas with an odd smile on his face. 

"What?" she asked. 

"Nothing. Just seems to me like you got a little lost in the work," he said. "You find anything good?"

She took his arm and led him to the kitchen. She said, "Tell you what. I'll tell you what I've found, but only if you promise not to obsess until tomorrow night."

"Hard bargain," he said. "Maybe don't give me all the details. You know, highlights."

"The only highlight I have right now is that I'm going to talk with Detective Griffin again," she said. 

"Not Burkhardt?" 

"Griffin was the one who dropped us off at the hospital. If he doesn't blink, I'll talk with Burkhardt, but something tells me Renard will intervene if I get too close," she replied.

"You miss this," he said. "Admit it."

"You mean hours staring at tedious facts and figures? Devising ways to force people to divulge the truth? Or you resisting medical advice?" she asked. 

"See, just like old times."

 

Friday morning, Scully arrived at the Portland Field Office's morgue, where the remains of Zack Tisdale waited for her examination.

"Doctor Scully," a young man said. "I'm Frederick Gaines, one of the interns... I was asked to assist you today."

"Thank you for having the body ready," she said. "I believe that will be all the assistance I require until my exam is complete."

"If you wouldn't mind, Doctor Scully, I'd like to watch," he said.

She nodded her head, yes.

Frederick took out a notebook and a pen as she set up for autopsy. It only took her a few minutes before she turned on the recorder and began her evaluation.

"Doctor Dana Scully, assisting Special Investigator Fox Mulder," she narrated. "Secondary examination of Zack Tisdale. Initial visual inspection shows evidence of the same biological substance found on the other victims, though the enzymes from the saliva have broken down the flesh, obscuring the bite marks and other wounds and preventing the previous medical examiner from getting molds from any of the injuries. It is now impossible to determine if they were inflicted by claws, teeth, knives, or some other weapon entirely."

She reopened the y-incision and examined the ribs. As she spoke, she automatically reached for the tools required, her muscle memory kicking in.

"However, the x-rays done during the initial autopsy revealed foreign bodies embedded under the third and fourth ribs," she continued.

She paused to extract the first object, and when she successfully lifted it from the bone, Frederick stood ready with a small pan for collection. She gave him a small smile of approval before continuing. 

"Upon extraction, the foreign object lodged in the third left rib appears to be a thin piece of metal, roughly triangular in shape and approximately thirteen millimeters along the longest edge." 

She dropped it into the pan Frederick was holding and moved on to the next.

"The other foreign body, lodged in the left fourth rib, is similar in composition but more rectangular, with one sharp edge and one partially rounded edge, about ten millimeters long."

She added it to the dish, and after a moment, she rearranged the pieces so that the sharp, angled edges were next to one another. They lined up, almost certainly from the same weapon.

A weapon that was neither tooth nor claw.

"Both foreign bodies come from the same object, apparently broken off during penetration to the chest," Scully continued. "Given the metallic composition and the general shape these two fragments make, they appear to be from a blade with an additional hooked edge, like a gut hook knife. Owing to the location of extraction, the left third and fourth ribs, I believe cause of death was multiple stab wounds to the heart, as these fragments were left by the murder weapon. The killer must've stabbed repeatedly, pulling the knife out and snagging the hooked edge along the rib bones until it broke. This would explain how the fragments were embedded under the ribs. I will order further analysis from the lab to see if we can identify a model and make of the weapon."

She looked over Zack Tisdale's remains again. She supposed it was possible that the original coroner assumed the fragments were unrelated to cause of death given their location, but the only reasonable explanation for that - besides incompetence - was that the medical examiner was working under the presumption that cause of death was an animal attack. Which meant he could've missed a lot more than just the murder weapon.

She sighed. It was going to be a long morning.

 

Mulder hadn't broken his promises to Scully. Not really.

She had given him a back brace that stabilized his core, preventing his bandage from moving too much when he slept. It was awkward and uncomfortable to wear all the time, but he promised her he would. And he was still wearing it now that he was sitting in the office. 

Yes, he was sitting at his computer, reading, but he hadn't allowed himself to obsess, which was technically his promise to Scully.

She had pulled up a lot of information on a family named Feller, but he skipped over it. She clearly had a theory, and it was best to let her follow it. Sooner or later, she'd fill him in, and she'd be none too pleased if he knew too much about it.

No, his interest was in Detective Nick Burkhardt and his partner, Detective Hank Griffin. Skinner provided him with a report when he accepted the job, but a few days ago, he supplied two additional reports covering "the basics" of any detective's career.

But Griffin and Burkhardt were far from basic, even in that respect.

From what he could tell, Nick's first kill on-the-job took place about four years ago. The assailant attacked him and his ailing aunt with a scythe. Since then, Burkhardt had killed five other suspects. Hank's first on-the-job kill took place ten years ago, when he was still an officer. He didn't have another fatality until days after Nick's first shooting. Since then he had six more kills on his record.

As far as paperwork and bureaucracy went, every fatality had been cleared by an investigative panel. According to the record, each kill had been done per regulations. But even without looking at the on-the-record shootings that didn't result in fatalities, he knew that these numbers were all wrong.

In fact, anyone who worked in law enforcement should be concerned by numbers like these. He spent over a decade at the FBI, part of which he spent in the violent crimes unit, and he killed a total of eleven people on the job. In nine years, Scully had killed ten (twelve if you counted the zombie and the bug-monster), and their numbers had also been considered quite high.

Griffin and Burkhardt were the best homicide detectives in the precinct when it came to closure rate and number of innocent lives rescued directly by their intervention. Perhaps that was why there had been no investigation into the fact that in the past four years, these partners had thirteen fatalities between them. Prior to that, they had but a single fatality. 

He glanced over the other statistics collected on their investigations. They had a high number of violent encounters, which certainly explained the suspect fatalities attributed to them, but there was no explanation as to why these two detectives had those confrontations to begin with. Were they better at tracking down their suspects then everyone else in the precinct? Did they have better CIs informing them? It seemed unlikely.

In fact, from his own experience, these kinds of numbers attracted unwanted attention, the kind that panels wanted to review. Yes, many people ordered scrutiny of the X-Files because, as a unit, it was mistrusted, disliked, and viewed as a "disgrace" to the FBI. But even two well-liked, effective detectives with these numbers should've been put under review a long time ago.

Was Captain Renard somehow protecting them? Or were people turning a blind eye for other reasons?

Skinner was right about one thing, a lot of crazy things happened around Nick Burkhardt, but he missed an important factor: everything started four years ago.

Hank Griffin became a detective in 2003. When Burkhardt became a detective in 2008, he was immediately transferred to homicide and partnered with Griffin. Over the next three years, they had a steady clearance rate, but it was only slightly higher than the department average. They had few violent encounters and no fatalities for the first three years that they worked together.

Then, four years ago, Burkhardt had his first lethal encounter, and everything went crazy. Violent encounters, fatalities, and case clearances leaped through the roof.

Mulder made a mental note of this. All of this started four years ago, which suggested something triggered it. Skinner would be pleased that he at least had a place to start.

He was exhausted, so he began to close the documents he'd been reading. He could start on this tomorrow.

Then something caught his eye: an address. Nick Burkhardt lived just a few blocks away. He doubted Scully would let him walk so far on his own, but maybe she'd be willing to join him for a quick stroll through the neighborhood.

 

"Detective Griffin?" Scully asked.

The man turned to her, surprised but not shaken, and said, "Doctor Scully. How can I help you?"

"I was wondering if we could talk. Alone."

Hank nodded, getting out of his seat and grabbing his coat. "I could use some coffee. There's a place across the street."

She nodded yes and followed, glad that neither Renard nor Burkhardt were around to interrupt. It took no time at all to walk to the café and settle into their seats.

"So, what's going on?" he asked.

"Funny, I was about to ask you the same," she replied. "You were the one who dropped me and my partner off at the hospital. I was hoping you could tell me more about it."

"Not much to tell. I didn't seen it when you and your partner went down, but afterwards, he was bleeding and you were unconscious."

"Did you administer any kind of medical aid before taking us to the hospital?"

"Me? No," Hank replied. "Juliette did."

A flicker of something came across his face, like he hadn't meant to say that.

"Juliette?" Scully repeated.

"Juliette Silverton," Hank said. "She's a vet. She's good with large animals, we thought she could help... anyway, she was the only there with any kind of medical knowledge, so she tried to stop the bleeding."

"Why didn't anyone mention her before?"

"Juliette is... was Nick's girlfriend. She was doing him a favor, not working with us officially, and... well, they're separated right now," Hank replied.

"I see," Scully said. "Detective Griffin, I have reason to believe there was a human fatality at Cora Canyon."

"No," he said. "At least, not that I'm aware of. A few injuries, yes, but no fatalities."

"Do the names Lasa, Tilda, and Kipson Feller mean anything to you?" she asked.

"No, should they?" he asked in reply. "What makes you even think there was a human fatality that night?"

"A human talus bone and two severed fingers," she replied. "I'm fairly certain at least one of the Fellers died that night, given that I haven't heard of anyone losing a foot and two fingers."

He seemed concerned, though he was doing his best not to show it. He sat back in his seat and took a moment.

"Let's assume we're talking about remains recovered recently at Cora Canyon, which is supposed to be on lock down," he said. "Isn't it possible that they were from a prior, unrelated incident."

"Given the state of decomp and the location, I'd say that would be highly unlikely, verging on impossible," she replied. "Your Captain hasn't been particularly forthcoming. I was hoping you would prove more reasonable."

"Reasonable?" Hank repeated skeptically.

"If I'm right, there may have been a fatality that has escaped your notice. I believe that's something any detective would want brought to their attention as quickly as possible."

"If what you're saying is true," Hank said. "Then we'd need whatever evidence you have. We need to run our own tests and investigate."

"That will be up to the FBI," she replied. "Are you sure the names aren't familiar to you? Tilda, Lasa, and Kipson Feller. Perhaps one of them was responsible for the first murder. Zack Tisdale."

"Zack Tisdale's death was attributed to an animal attack," Hank said.

"It was," Scully replied. "I did a second autopsy this morning. Zack Tisdale was stabbed through the heart with a hooked knife of some kind."

"A knife?" Hank asked. "Not claws or teeth?" He seemed genuinely surprised by the notion. Then he added, "Are you sure?"

"I'll know more when the results on the knife fragments come back from the lab," she replied. "But, yes, I'm certain. Zack Tisdale wasn't killed by an animal. He was murdered. The animal attack was used to cover up the murder."

"Can I ask you something?"

"I don't see why not."

"You're not an agent or an investigator," he said. "Why are you even looking into this?"

"Detective Griffin, my children are coming to Portland tomorrow morning. I'd like to know, prior to their arrival, that the creature stalking me is dead and gone," she said. "And that anyone or anything else - human or otherwise - involved in these homicides are locked away or dead."

"Everything that we have points to this case being closed," Hank replied.

"Except for the human remains in Cora Canyon and the knife fragments I pulled out of Zack Tisdale."

Hank replied, "I can't speak to evidence I haven't seen. You wanna ask me what the hell those things were? I dunno. I don't even wanna know. I'm just glad there gone. If you don't mind, I should really get back to work."

 

Nick Burkhardt paced the length of his bedroom. The first night Juliette moved out, he couldn't sleep. The guestroom felt like an isolated desert, far away from everything he cared about, and his own room seemed so empty.

But he had spent the last two days sleeping an hour or two in the trailer, and his sleep deprivation hadn't gone unnoticed. The Captain ordered him to go home and sleep for at least eight hours before he even thought about working another case. 

He had made all sorts of excuses. He had to research more about the feral Geflugelten Ritters and figure out what had happened to their remains. He had to add new information to the books in the trailer. He had to make sure all the bills were paid on time. His semi-burned skin kept him awake while it healed.

That last one ran out this morning, when the last of the burns peeled off. His skin had never been better.

The truth was that this wasn't just insomnia. Nick didn't want to try to sleep because every time he slept long enough to dream, he dreamed of Juliette coming home, coming back to him. Then, after a few euphoric moments, Nick would wake with a racing heart, covered in sweat, like he'd just woken up from a nightmare. 

It didn't make sense. He dreamed that Juliette found him dozed off in the trailer and woke him so they could go home. They kissed, and she took him by the hand. Before he could step outside with her, he woke up abruptly, still sitting at the desk in the trailer. Nothing about the dream itself was frightening. So why did he wake up as if a horrible monster had been chasing him through the woods?

When he thought about it, all his dreams for the last few days had been just like that one: wonderful and happy only to be abruptly ended in terror. Was it some Grimm response to his situation with Juliette? He once read that REM dreams were practice, a kind of neurological simulation that keep age-old survival skills sharp even during long periods of disuse. Nightmares about being trapped or being hunted were simply practice for real-life dangers.

Nick remembered his dreams when he first became a Grimm, and in a way, they cushioned the transition. So maybe this was his Grimm-dreaming kicking in, training him to associate his relationship with Juliette as a perilous situation.

Apparently, Juliette wasn't the only one who thought a Hexenbiest and a Grimm made a bad couple. Renard hadn't said anything directly, but he implied that it was a terrible idea. Rosalee and Monroe held their tongues, but they seemed to be on Juliette's side in this, too. And now, if his dreams were any indication, even his ancestors were chiming in on the matter.

_You're crazy, Nick! How can you think a Grimm and a Hexenbiest could ever be together?_

He sighed in frustration. If he looked into it, he would probably find plenty of Grimm- _wesen_ relationships throughout history. Aunt Marie nearly married Farley Kolt, a Steinadler, but she never talked with Nick about her romantic relationships. What wouldn't he give to ask her a few questions now? 

Every fiber of his being resisted the idea that he shouldn't be with Juliette because she became a Hexenbiest. It felt like abandoning her, giving up on her, after she stood by him for the last four years, enduring lies, kidnapping, injury, and amnesia. What kind of a person walked away from a love like that because suddenly she was in the same boat as him?

He stopped pacing. For the last two days, the same thoughts had circled in his head, never changing, never clarifying. It was just another thing he did to avoid sleeping. In the end, for all the excuses he made, he truly had no idea why he didn't want to sleep.

Admittedly, he and Hank had taken on another case immediately after the feral attacks that was weird even by _wesen_ standards. And now, Linus-slash-Stacy Balouzian hired a lawyer who was working on a deal with the DA for treatment in a medical facility instead of jail time. 

Nick didn't know which was worse: Linus getting a deal or Linus pleading insanity. Even if the jury was full of _wesen_ , there would be no way for them to know that Huntha Lami Muuaji actually _woged_ between genders, being both male and female. They'd see a man who believed he that transformed into a woman to pick up men in bars. All his violent acts could be attributed to a dissociative state that occurred when his 'dates' realized that he wasn't a woman but a man and rejected him. 

Or at least, that's how the legal narrative would go. 

Nick laughed humorlessly. He had become incredibly cynical in the past few days. Was that because Juliette was gone and not taking his calls?

Despite the fact that it was three in the afternoon, he was exhausted. So, he tossed his pants and shirt and crawled into his bed. He hadn't changed the sheets, and they still had something of her scent and her perfume on them. Last week, he desperately wanted to be here, in his bedroom, and now he'd happily retire to the guestroom if it meant Juliette would come home.

With that thought, he fell asleep.

 

Scully returned home later than she expected. But she wasn't surprised to find Mulder sprawled out in the office rather than in bed like he should be. 

He had fallen asleep stretched on the floor staring up at the corkboard he had arranged. She was going to kill him when he woke up.

The FBI must've sent back reports because she hadn't seen most of what he'd posted. He had a timeline of events for Michael Smith (aka Myron Stefaniak), who had a received a W2 for manning a lighthouse between Anderson Island and the mainland in Pierce County, Washington for the last seven years. A few weeks ago, Mirabel and Ezriel Coyle found Michael Smith unconscious when delivering his weekly supplies. They took him to the closest emergency medical center, but he was quickly transferred to Auburn Medical Center because the doctors believed the patient required long-term care. The rest of the timeline remained the same as before.

It would've been a waste of time, except that Ezriel and Mirabel Coyle were reported missing by their mother on Wednesday night. There were no other reports of deaths by animal mauling, but two bodies were found in Pierce County on Monday, a John and Jane Doe. They had been tortured and murdered, with the time of death estimated on Sunday between eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon. They had no fingertips or ids on them.

She made a mental note to put in a request with the Seattle Field Office to confirm their identities with dental records. If she was right, then it proved her theory: whether or not these animals were sentient, somehow a human counterpart was involved. Someone who liked killed people with knives.

She sighed. Scully had to admit, she had missed this. Not the danger and the chaos, but bringing facts together to solve a case. She missed working with Mulder.

But those days were behind them both now. These cases never came without risk. They never came without danger. And they had too much to lose now. She couldn't go back to that life. She didn't even want to.

But she wouldn't mind it if, from time to time, she needed to weigh in on things.

 

Hank Griffin went straight to the Captain after his unpleasant discussion with Scully.

"I don't find it surprising," Renard said. "Especially if she's afraid for her children."

"I get that, sir, but she said she found evidence of a human fatality. And she had names."

"Names?"

"Kipson, Lasa, and Tilda Feller," he replied. "They all got records, and Captain, you should see their mug shots."

Hank handed him the file.

"You think these are our Geflugelten Ritters?" Renard asked.

"Don't you?"

"It's possible this is what they looked like before they reached the final stage."

Hank said, "By 'final stage,' you mean the part where they look like giant bats, right?"

"Yeah," he replied. "The process of, uh... going feral, as they say, takes time. Their ages all fall in line with it, too."

"Are all human deformities _wesen_ -related?" Hank asked.

"Trust me, no," he replied. "They were still passing as human because of a rare defect, I don't remember the medical term. I'm surprised they have records at all."

"Maybe killing the cops that caught them was a bad idea."

"Only if they were still thinking like people at the time," Renard replied. "If she's right, and these people are our Geflugelten Ritters, we'll need a cover story."

"Like what?" Hank asked. "We got nothing on these people for years."

"How many years?" Renard asked.

"Last thing I found was marked 1991, and Captain, that's part of the problem."

"Problem?" Renard repeated.

"In 1991, Lasa Feller received two birth certificates for a boy and a girl."

"Twins," Renard said. "That's not good."

"No, it's not. Because if the Fellers are our Geflugelten Ritters, then there's a good chance that there's still two more out there."

"That's a problem for another day," Renard said. "We need to focus on the remains. Do we know who they came from?"

"No," Hank replied. "But it's been twenty-four years since we'd had anything on Lasa Feller, longer for Kipson and Tilda."

"Which means their remains could've ended up in Cora Canyon years ago," Renard said. "Unrelated to this case."

"Should we bring Nick in on this?"

"No," Renard replied. "He needs to sleep, and those investigators from the FBI are too suspicious of you already. I'll handle this."

"Captain, she seemed pretty suspicious of you, too," Hank said.

"Yes, but luckily I have contacts who can handle this discreetly," he replied. "If anyone asks why you pulled these files, tell them you were just following up on intel provided by the FBI. It's true. But until there is actual confirmation from the FBI, we have no other comment."

"What if the FBI have enough to confirm the identity?" Hank asked.

"Like I said, I have contacts," he replied. "It's Friday. Shouldn't you be clearing the paperwork from your desk so you can go home and enjoy the weekend?"

"I hear that, Captain."

 

Mulder jolted awake from his nightmare. It was just as harsh as the last time, but at least when he woke in his own bed, he knew it hadn't been real. He checked his stitches. They were fine.

Scully slept next to him, her warmth calming him. He wondered if she knew how much she'd changed his life, how much she had done to rescue him from his own demons. She had been his rock while investigating the X-Files, but when he was on the run and in hiding, she hadn't abandoned him. She provided him with refuge and love and understanding, none of which he deserved.

His legendary insomnia had nearly disappeared because of Dana Scully. She listened to his ramblings and understood what he meant. She heard his desperation and knew where he was coming from. She gave him a home and a family, and above all else, she provided a peace of mind that allowed him to sleep.

Not that he still hadn't had insomnia, of course. There were times when he was so worried about her that he couldn't even eat, let alone sleep. But those times came and went.

He watched her sleep as the after taste of his nightmare faded. She had told him that Juliette Silverton had patched him up. She also explained her relationship to Burkhardt, and he wondered if Skinner had somehow planned all this.

He shook his head and chased those conspiracy theories away. He needed space in his mind for the real ones.

"Bad dream?" Scully asked as her eyes opened.

"Didn't mean to wake you."

"Was it about the man-bat?" she asked.

"No, actually," he replied. "It was about Juliette Silverton disemboweling me."

"Bold to admit you're dreaming of another woman," she said with a weak smile.

"You jealous?"

"If anyone disembowels you Mulder, it really should be me," she replied.

"Tell my subconscious that," he said.

"You should really go back to sleep."

"You too."

"You first."

He smiled at her as he tucked her hair behind her ear. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you, too."

 

Mulder was never fond of concealing things, but he and Scully agreed not to talk to her mother and brother about the man-bat or the case surrounding it.

To explain the back brace that covered his bandage, they decided to say that Mulder had thrown out his back, even though it made him feel a lot older than he was.

Around eleven in the morning, his burner phone rang.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Scorpio, this is Tinman. Over."

"This isn't a radio, and we don't need code names anymore Fr-"

"This is Tinman," the caller interrupted. 

"This is Scorpio," Mulder replied, rolling his eyes.

"Sandman, Strawman, and I have escorted the others to Portland, but at Dune's request, we're hanging back."

He asked, "How are all of you?"

"Sandman and Strawman are both annoying. I am well."

"When they requested you to hang back, did they give a reason?"

"Family time."

"Right, well, thank you, Tinman, and tell Strawman and Sandman that Sc- Millennia and I are both well," Mulder replied. 

"Dune and Desert will be arriving with August One and August Two in approximately one hour. Oh, and I'll call later this weekend with a rendezvous time."

Thirteen years ago, when Mulder was newly on the run from the government, he had set up encrypted radio communications to touch base with Doggett, Reyes, Skinner, Gibson Praise, Scully, and anyone else who might help them.

The original codenames all came from the Wizard of Oz, but after a few months, several of their messages were intercepted, decrypted, and decoded, nearly costing Gibson his freedom. Since most of Mulder's connections were not telepaths like Gibson who could tell their drop site had been compromised before they approached, he began rotating codenames monthly. 

Predictably, it became very confusing, especially at the beginning of the month when the new codes were put into effect or whenever a new person joined his network. He quickly ran out of good ideas and resorted to things like types of fruit, animals with a metallic adjective, months of the year, and so on. The problem became even worse when he had to invent names for people who were not in the network but still needed protection, such as Scully's extended family. 

By the second year, Mulder decided only to change codenames after they had been compromised. This left him with a quilt work collection of names: Scorpio for himself, Millennia for Scully, Dune for her mother, Desert for her younger brother Charles, Mountain for her older brother William, Bravo Three for Doggett, Ox Jaw for Gibson, Hermes for Reyes, and Mercury for Skinner.

"Mulder?" Scully said. "Are you coming down?"

He joined Scully in the kitchen, where she was preparing burgers for lunch. 

"Need a hand?" he asked.

"If you don't mind doing the patties," she replied. "Did you get a call?"

"Yeah, they'll be here in an hour. And, don't let me to forget to set up our radio," he said.

"Didn't we replace that with the burner phones?"

"I know people still contact me via radio. What if Gibson wants to talk with one of us?" he asked. "What if he has an emergency and tries to use the radio as a last resort?"

"I'll remind you, but you'll need help setting it up, so you'll have to wait until I get home."

"Don't be absurd. Look at me. I'll be doing jumping Jacks by Monday!"

Scully turned to him, concerned and slightly annoyed. "I know you're joking Mulder, but you're not thirty-five anymore. The doctors already had to remove some of your abdominal skin to close that wound once. You really can't afford to lose more."

"I thought I was slimmer there," he said. "I promise, no running around or strenuous exercise."

"Don't forget to put cheese on half of those," Scully said, indicating the patties.

 

Charles Scully and Margaret Scully arrived at 1521 NE Prescott Street just after noon on Saturday.

"We got neighbors?" Sam asked from the back seat.

"Didn't your dad tell you?" Charles replied, smiling. "You have neighbors. An entire neighborhood, just like the one where your mom and I grew up."

"Wow," Missy said, peeking out the window.

Charles let Sam, age twelve, and Missy, age five, out of the backseat. 

"Your mom also told me that they have a surprise for you," Margaret Scully said as she joined them.

Charles wondered what it could be, but when he rang the bell and heard barking, the surprise became pretty clear. 

"We got a dog?" Sam said loudly. 

"We do have a dog," Scully said as she opened the door. "Come on in and meet him."

She smiled as Missy and Sam raced inside to the living room. She gave Charles and their mother both hugs. 

"Thank you for doing this, Charlie, Mom," she said. "It was good to have things ready and settled before they came out. And they both seem - "

"They were on their best behavior," Margaret said. "They were little angels, weren't they, Charles?"

"So long as they spent the night in their own beds," Charles said.

"You mean they slept somewhere else?" Scully asked, shocked.

"We got stuck at my place because of the weather," he replied, doing his best to placate his sister. "We all survived, it's fine."

"I'm guessing not all of your household appliances did," Scully said. 

"No, but better a microwave and a flat screen than hitting a tree or something," he said.

Charles had steered clear of the conflicts between his family members and Mulder. One byproduct of this was a strong relationship with his sister, which allowed her to confide in him what she wouldn't tell their older brother. 

For example, Charles knew all about their children, including the fact that their identities were protected via the foster-to-adopt process. Though he never could confess to understanding the reason in its entirety, both Missy and Sam exhibited abnormal abilities, especially during emotional reactions. They were old enough to control themselves except when they had exciting dreams or nightmares. When that happened, appliances overloaded and exploded, toys moved of their own accord, and utensils became stuck to the ceiling only to come crashing down after they woke up. 

He decided, for the time being, to omit telling his sister about those particular events. He knew that they must've taken precautions of some kind at their house, since nothing strange happened there when Sam and Missy slept. He assumed that's why his sister had been so adamant about her children sleeping in their own beds.

Charles watched as Mulder introduced Missy and Sam to a very large dog named Rex. His eldest son was twenty-four, and his two younger children were both in High School. He felt almost envious that his sister and her partner were still at the beginning of things. 

"Who's hungry?" Scully asked, smiling.

 

The weekend had been blissfully uneventful. Scully smiled as Missy asked if she could ride Rex like a horse ("I don't think Rex would appreciate that, sweetie."), and Sam asked if he could take the dog for a walk on his own ("You'll need to grow a bit more.").

Charlie did a great job keeping Mulder busy. They worked together to acclimate Missy and Sam to the neighborhood, which gave her time to unpack things with her mother.

As Sunday night rolled around, she was wondering if she could ask her mother to stay out a little longer.

"This is a lovely neighborhood you've found," Margaret said. "Why did you keep it secret for so long?"

"I thought... I was worried it would fall through," Scully replied. "I didn't want to show you this place and then lose it."

"Dana, you know I watch the news, don't you?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I'm your mother," Margaret said. "You should be able to tell me things."

"Mom?"

"Like the three dangerous animals killed in Portland," she said. "Animals that killed multiple people and drew in the FBI and the local cops."

"Mom, please - "

"Mulder is hurt," Margaret interrupted. "If he wasn't, I probably wouldn't've put it all together."

"It's not what you think, Mom."

"What I think is that you came to Portland, and not a month later, there's a monster attack," she said. "Anything you want to tell me?"

"It was a past case," Scully replied. "My past case, Mom."

"I thought all of this was behind you!"

"It's never behind me," she replied. "Mom, don't act like you don't know."

"Know?"

"About Sam and Missy," she replied. "If they stayed over at Charlie's place, you must've seen what they can do."

"You're saying you adopted them as part of the X-Files?" Margaret asked.

"No, we adopted them because we love them," she replied. "But we originally fostered them because of their gifts. Someone needed to keep them safe."

"Dana, when you said you wanted a fresh start, I thought that that meant you were done with the FBI and the bodies and the death," her mother said.

"I am done with it," Scully replied. "But the FBI and the X-Files aren't done with me." 

"Dana... your kids are special, I understand that," Margaret said. "But if you're thinking about returning to the FBI, after you've worked so hard to change careers, then - "

"No, that's not what I'm saying," Scully interrupted. "My new job at TreeView is perfect. But just because the X-Files are closed doesn't mean that I can just walk away. They're too big for that. I was too involved. They're too much a part of me."

"I pray every night that they won't get you killed," Margaret admitted.

"I do, too, Mom."

 

Charles helped Mulder teach Missy and Sam how to walk Rex. As they reached the corner, he stopped them.

"Uncle Charles is going to take you both the rest of the way," Mulder said.

"But you said you'd come with us, Dad!" Sam protested.

"You promised!" Missy added.

"And I did," Mulder replied. "But with my back thrown out, I can't walk as far. If you want to cut your walk with Rex short and come back with me - "

"NO!" they both said at the same time.

"Seems like they're coming with me," Charles said with a wink. "Catch you back at the house."

"Walk safely," Mulder said. "Look both ways before crossing the road!"

Charles shook his head as they walked away, and Mulder watched them go, feeling slightly guilty about lying. He rounded the corner and spotted a large van parked just up the street.

"In broad daylight?" he muttered to himself. "Real subtle guys."

He knocked four times on the back door, and it popped open. 

"Hurry," someone said from inside. "Before somebody sees you."

Mulder moved as fast as he could, stepping into the van and closing the door after. He found himself in what seemed to be a well-equipped, portable computer lab.

"I see you've made a few improvements, Gunmen," Mulder said.

"What happened to the code names?" Frohike said. "It's Strawman, Sandman, and Tinman."

"I could've sworn you were Toto, Frohike," Mulder said with a smile.

"See? Didn't I tell you?" Langly said as he and Byers came closer. "How did the reunion go? Any trouble with Misses Scully?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"Because we all heard about the monster loose in Portland," Langly said. "She asked us about it. Wanted to know if we helped you on this case."

"She assumes we help you on all of your cases," Byers added. "Which we could be flattered by - "

"Except she's pissed about it," Langley interrupted. 

"It wasn't a monster exactly, it was three... man-bats," Mulder said.

The Lone Gunman laughed in unison, disbelief on their faces. Thirteen years ago, they had faked their deaths when they narrowly escaped exposure to a deadly pathogen.

Skinner had done an incredible job with it, having them buried at Arlington for their bravery. It was the perfect cover up scheme: a man like Skinner would never push for something so important unless the people in question were actually dead.

So passed the Lone Gunman. Skinner hadn't told Scully or Mulder about it, not until long after the "trial" that condemned him to death in 2002. Mulder had thought his friends had died, but he should've known better. For almost a year on the run, he received intel that saved his skin, and more than once he noticed how the writing sounded like Byers, Langly, or Frohike.

When Skinner finally added them to the encrypted radio network in 2003, he realized his "dead" friends were helping him from beyond the grave.

"Tell us more about the man-bat," Byers said. "Was it an experiment gone wrong?"

"We have a story about these giant dogs in Kansas, a byproduct of an experiment gone wrong," Langley said.

"I'm sure it's fascinating, but I don't have much time right now," he said. "I put everything on this USB drive. There are a few names on there we'd like you to look into, if you have some time."

"All the time in the world," Frohike said.

"We've found a place in Portland," Byers said.

"You're moving to Portland?" Mulder asked.

"We've got places all over the US," Langly said. "This is our first permanent west-coast place, though. Gotta set up the lair and get everything installed."

"A month or two," Byers said.

"So we got time while we're here," Frohike replied. "Maybe you can invite us over for dinner."

"I'm sure Scully had already planned that," Mulder said.

 

Monday morning had started out well. She woke up to find Mulder cooking breakfast, and though he was still recovering, he seemed cheerful enough. He had planned his entire day with Sam and Missy, who were both already awake and asking for more pancakes.

It all turned sour just a few hours later at lunch when Mulder called her.

"Are Missy and Sam all right?" she asked.

"They're having a blast," Mulder replied. "We should've gotten a dog years ago. How's work?"

"Busy, but that's just because I missed two days. Has the FBI gotten back to you about anything?"

He cleared his throat. "Actually, yeah. The FBI has turned the Zack Tisdale murder over to local authorities in Burley, Idaho. They said the results of your autopsy reclassified it as a homicide rather than an animal attack. Since our case was about vicious animals attacking, they've decided Tisdale's death must be unrelated."

"Except the vicious animals mauled his body, too," she protested.

"I said the same thing. But the Seattle Field Office dismissed it. Somebody - as in a human - killed him, which means somebody had a reason to. Then his body was gnawed on. I guess they think it's just extreme post-mortem predation."

"What about Mirabel and Ezriel Coyle?" she asked.

"Seattle Field Office confirmed that the John and Jane Doe found stabbed to death in Pierce County were Mirabel and Ezriel Coyle. Dental records."

"So we've lost the Tisdale case, but if we can - " she began.

"No dice, Scully," he interrupted. "They thanked us for our thorough work and then, just like the Tisdale murder, they handed the double homicide to local authorities. They said there's no reason to suspect they're related to the animal attacks, which means the FBI has no jurisdiction."

"What about their connection to Michael Smith?" she asked.

"The FBI wants this case closed, Scully," Mulder said. "Badly. They don't want to handle cases like this. If they can pawn these homicides off, they will. I can try to get them to let me in on these investigations, but even if they said yes, I'd have to travel, and - "

"You can't travel for another week at least, Mulder," she interrupted.

"I'm not arguing," he replied. "The FBI might be okay with you filing request on my behalf, but flying you out on these other case?"

"I understand."

"There's more," Mulder said. "The Gunman have been looking into everyone associated with this case."

"They found something?"

"It's more what they haven't found," Mulder replied. "They were looking into this family you found, the Fellers, and they can't find a thing past 1991. Nada. Zip. Zilch."

"Given how little I found on them, I suspect these people live off the grid," Scully said.

"No, Scully, I mean they've got nothing. They hacked the system to get a hold of police reports, but they've mysteriously vanished. All they got was the mug shots and a few statements that hadn't been deleted yet. They're poking around, seeing if they can find anything that might've been missed. But someone has gone out of their way to erase the Feller record, Scully."

"I spoke with Detective Griffin about them," she said. "You don't think..."

"According to the Gunmen, whoever did this was thorough," he replied. "A skilled hacker probably."

"Can they tell which one?" Scully asked.

"They're working on it," he replied. "But in the mean time, the Fellers have fallen off the face of the earth, and I don't think the timing was an accident."

"But it makes no sense," she replied. "If there was a fatality, then why cover it up?"

"Maybe it wasn't an accident," Mulder said. "But when it comes to making people disappear, getting rid of anyone who lives off the grid is pretty easy. You find whatever traces they've left and wipe them out."

"So the FBI is closing the case, and we have nothing?" Scully asked.

"Like I said, the Gunmen pulled a few things off the system," he replied. "And we've still got that hacker to find."

"But for right now, there's nothing we can do."

"Unfortunately," he replied. "I'm sorry, Scully. What you did for me last week, it was... amazing. You should've have had to do all that, and now - "

"Mulder, don't," she replied. "I'd do it all again, and you know that. Take care of Missy and Sam, I'll be home in time for dinner."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

She hung up and felt a pit knot in her stomach. She had told Mulder to accept the job looking into Nick Burkhardt, and she had a gut feeling that it was going to be a lot harder than she thought.

> We spend our days like puzzle-solvers, moving pieces around, trying to make them fit.
> 
> Some of us decide we know the truth, so we squish what we have, reshape each piece until they fit together and tell the story we want them to.
> 
> Some of us can't be bothered with what we call the "little things," dismissing them as paltry details that have no bearing on the bigger picture. We leave gaps and holes here and there because the truth is too big to be tripped up by a few discrepancies found only in someone's notebook, filed away in some dusty corner.
> 
> Some of us misstep and struggle to accept the truth that the pieces are telling us. We line them up and hope desperately that what we are wrong. We look for facts that debunk the story, big and small and everything in between, hoping that whatever we stumble upon next will be the one thing that will reveal the actual truth. The truth that we can accept. The truth we want to believe.
> 
> But no investigator wants to admit our personal truth: every case we touch leaves its own mark on us. Open-and-shut cases. Quirky cases. Slow cases. Frustrating cases. Easy cases. Catastrophic, soul-crushing cases. Each time we look at another puzzle, it looks back at us, and we can't help but be changed by it.
> 
> If you're lucky enough to work on cases for as long as Scully and I have, you soon find traces of those other cases everywhere. A residuum immemorial that won't let go of you no matter how much time passes or how far you travel. But there is no remedy for being affected by your own experience other than to accept that they are as much a part of you as you are a part of them. 
> 
> \--Fox Mulder


End file.
